Glass Class: From point A to point B

Pilots flying a glass-cockpit airplane, especially cross-country, have more information at their fingertips than ever before.

This is the third in a series of articles about learning to fly a Technically Advanced Aircraft (TAA). Ninety percent of production aircraft rolling off the assembly lines of the five largest general aviation manufacturers have glass cockpits that meet the TAA definition. This series will help you to learn how to fly them more efficiently.--Ed.

Pilots flying glass-cockpit airplanes, especially cross-country, have more information at their fingertips than ever before. One of the key differences between today's two primary ssystems, the Avidyne Entegra (above, shown in a Cirrus SR20) and the Garmin G1000 (below, in a Cessna 182), is where the pilot enters the navigation programming.

When flying technically advanced aircraft, the pilot must monitor navigation and ensure the airplane is going where he wants it to go--is this divergence from the magenta course line (above) intentional or inadvertent? The flight plan or FPL button (below) allows the pilot to program a destination or multiple waypoints; accidentally enter an incorrect waypoint and it will be difficult for you to navigate to your desired destination.

A TAA's multifunction display contains a wealth of information, like this airport data page (above) that shows sunrise and sunset, wind direction and speed, and density altitude, among others. It's normal to deviate from the planned route as you approach your destination airport (below); this airplane is entering a right downwind for Runway 26R at Spirit of St. Louis Airport.

In an Avidyne Entegra panel, the pilot enters navigation information on a Garmin GNS 430 (above); with a Garmin G1000 glass cockpit, the data entry display appears on the primary flight display (below).

When we discussed Technically Advanced Aircraft (TAA) screen navigation and keeping ahead of the aircraft in flight (see "Glass Class: Bump, Scroll, and Twist," May 2007 AOPA Flight Training), we found that there are two key challenges to safely learning to fly TAA: programming knowledge and cockpit fixation. Addressing these challenges early in the training process will result in a safer flying experience. Today we will explore how to configure the cockpit for our particular flight and how to handle changes that inevitably will come up as the flight progresses.

Configuring the aircraft to go where the pilot wants to go is one of the primary cockpit duties. In traditional aircraft, the task meant sitting down with a chart and a flight planning log. Once the pilot obtained the weather and the winds, he then had the final ingredient of the navigation equation and could determine the heading required to achieve a track that would produce the most efficient flight to the destination. The pilot then used a combination of aeronautical decision making, spatial judgment, and intuition to guide the aircraft along its path on the chart.

With the advent of electronic navigation 40 years ago and the revolution of the GPS receiver in the cockpit 12 years ago, the entire human/machine interface has changed. Just as computers have revolutionized business and engineering processes, advances in automation speed and dependability have finally convinced manufacturers and the FAA to bring this technology to general aviation. Today's glass-cockpit training aircraft are more advanced than the corporate jets of 20 years ago. We now have the computer, the autopilot, the GPS, and the flight management system (FMS) all working together, compliments of the pilot's tactful guidance--thus the definition of TAA.

Pilots suddenly find themselves using computer integration to plan and execute complex flight plans. Sounds a lot like NASA space missions, doesn't it? Our job becomes one of oversight of the cockpit, and we have to become automation managers who are still 100 percent responsible for the operation of the aircraft in the event of an emergency or failure of a flight component. Today's systems can do everything except taxi, take off, and land. Pilots must still be trained to handle everything in case automation misbehaves.

An important component of mastering this technology is single pilot resource management (SPRM). This is the methodical process of flying with a one-person crew and keeping ahead of the aircraft so that the pilot is not caught off guard. Mastering the programming aspects of the system and minimizing fixation are key ingredients in SPRM and, besides maintaining pilot proficiency, are the most effective way to enjoy flight without peril.

As the pilot's responsibility now becomes that of a cockpit manager, he has also simultaneously inherited a new flight skill: automation programmer. The pilot must direct the system to go where he wants to go and maintain vigilance over the system to make sure that it does.

Whether a pilot is flying a G1000 system in a Cessna or a Diamond, or an Avidyne Entegra in a Cirrus or Piper, there are generally three ways to fly the aircraft. The pilot can enter a multiple-waypoint flight plan by pressing the FPL key and submit that to the autopilot, use the Direct-to key to go from the current location to a predetermined point, or he can simply ignore or disable the automation and fly the aircraft manually.

A major difference between the Garmin G1000 and the Avidyne Entegra is where you enter the programming and how it is coupled to the autopilot. Pilots should be trained to handle the respective systems in a way that will yield the best memory retention. Obtain the proper training from a competent and knowledgeable instructor; you will learn the systems correctly, and it does not take that much longer than receiving casual training from an instructor who may not be as familiar with the equipment.

Just what does the pilot need to know besides how to enter the flight plan? The crux of all navigation--and the key instrument for the pilot to watch--is the horizontal situation indicator (HSI), located on the primary flight display (PFD).

The HSI not only displays the heading, but it also provides floating colored arrows, reference bugs, and bearing pointers that the pilot or the autopilot can interpret to make course corrections. Correlate that information with the course line superimposed on the multifunction display's moving map and the pilot now has what we call electronic situational awareness. This has, in effect, replaced some of the intuition pilots used to need to fly cross-country before today's navigation automation. That decision-making ability is still required of pilots if the automation or its supporting electronics fails.

The pilot needs to use the FMS buttons and knobs to get the desired route waypoints into the direct-to or multipoint flight plan. This is where the "bump, scroll, and twist" screen control navigation paradigm comes into play.

The pilot simply enters in a string of sequential waypoints that define the desired path from the departure point to the destination using the FPL button. Once the desired route is in place, then the pilot activates the leg and places the autopilot in NAV mode, and the aircraft is ready to follow its orders. This is called coupling the autopilot to the flight plan. It is a key ingredient in TAA operation. We will talk about the autopilot in the next installment.

Once the pilot completes the programming task, he should be free to spend time doing cockpit management, monitoring the progress of the flight, and mentally staying ahead of the aircraft--as long as he can fight off the temptation to fixate on one aspect of the scan at the expense of another. When scan flow stalls, it usually is with the MFD, where a host of useful information lives--including traffic, weather, terrain advisory, and weather radar on more advanced platforms. When fixation occurs, the pilot may not catch looming flight threats until too late. Examples include airspace intrusions, obstacle or controlled flight into terrain, or getting too close to the destination before the pilot is mentally prepared to arrive.

You now should have a better understanding of the navigation and flight-plan programming task required in airplanes equipped with glass cockpits such as the G1000 and the Entegra. Get ahead of the aircraft by performing as much of the flight planning as you can before the aircraft is under way. Most trips can be completely programmed before engine start. Using this approach frees the pilot to spend more time performing scan flow and less time watching the MFD TV.

No one says that you can't still hand-fly the aircraft to keep those skills sharp, but when you need to call on the automation to help out--or take over completely for a while--you will be prepared and know exactly how to do that.

Michael G. Gaffney is president of Skyline Aeronautics at Spirit of St. Louis Airport in St. Louis, Missouri. A Master CFI and a Master Ground Instructor, he was named the 2007 national Flight Instructor of the Year. Gaffney, author of ASA's The Complete G1000 Course, also holds airline transport pilot and airframe and powerplant certificates.

Glass class online

See accompanying multimedia at ft.aopa.org/glassclass3/.