Is there glass in your future?

A crystal future New school specializes in glass cockpits Glass Cockpit Aviation, which makes its home in a tastefully refurbished older hangar at Republic Airport on New York's Long Island, was formed in October 2005 by four pilots who saw glass cockpits as the way of the future. Love played a role, too--on several levels, said Hanna Harel, general manager and an owner. "Our company was born out of a pure love for flying." She married an inactive pilot and gave him a gift certificate for flight training; he met flight instructor Didier Baco, now Glass Cockpit's project developer and a co-owner, and earned his instrument rating. Moshe Weiner, a private pilot who had purchased a Cirrus, first voiced the idea of opening a glass-cockpit flight school. His brother, Doron Weiner, was not a pilot, but when he was introduced to aviation, he became totally consumed with it. They're both board-certified oncologists and hematologists who were bitten by the aviation bug. "We started with one SR22, not knowing what we were going to do with it," Baco joked. Then the hangar became available, and Baco became the first instructor. The fleet grew to four Cirruses, "then Diamond came along. That was a logical move--the Cirrus uses Avidyne, but there's a lot of interest in the [Garmin] G1000, which the Diamond has." Harel is a student pilot, and she can empathize with transitioning pilots who find themselves too focused on the cockpit displays. "They start concentrating on the inside and forget to look outside the plane," she said. "My instructor has had to turn off the screens because they were too distracting." She also enjoys flying the school's simulator. "It helps me tremendously." Today the company operates two Cirrus SR20s, three SR22s, and two Diamond DA40s. In early 2007 it was to receive two Diamond DA20C-1 Eclipse trainers.

You've heard the term glass cockpit bandied about the airport for some time now. There may be a glass-cockpit airplane on the rental line at your flight school. Perhaps you're learning to fly in a glass cockpit today--or anxiously awaiting the day that you can transition into one.

Like so many other things in aviation, this modern technology has spawned its own language, or at the very least, its own set of abbreviations: TAA, PFD, MFD, GPS, FITS, ADS-B.

But the big question on most pilots' minds is, What does it mean for me? Will the future find you sitting behind one of these glass cockpits? Should it?

Alphabet soup

Let's explain some of these abbreviations up front. By definition, a Technically Advanced Aircraft (TAA) has a global positioning system (GPS) navigator that determines location, track, and speed--among other parameters--by calculating its distance to satellites orbiting the Earth. A TAA's GPS must have a moving-map display and be coupled to an autopilot that can track a course programmed into the GPS.

A TAA doesn't require a full-blown Garmin G1000 or Avidyne Entegra suite; it can be as (relatively) simple as a Garmin GNS 430 GPS connected to a basic autopilot. The G1000 or Entegra add a primary flight display (PFD), an electronic representation of your traditional flight instruments, and a multifunction display (MFD)--typically used to show a moving map, the MFD also can depict engine instrumentation and other data. Combined, a PFD and MFD give you a glass cockpit which can be further enhanced with near-real-time weather information and radar images delivered to the cockpit via datalink, and the location of any nearby aircraft--possibly provided by Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), in which GPS-derived aircraft location is broadcast to other aircraft (and, some day, perhaps to air traffic control facilities on the ground). Now the conventional round flight-instrument dials are called steam gauges or analog.

And FITS? The FAA/Industry Training Standards program, a partnership of industry and academia, creates scenario-based, learner-focused training that encourages practical application of knowledge and skills. Developed to help TAA pilots learn the new technology and develop risk management skills, it may have broader potential in aviation training.

Some realities

TAA--and, increasingly, glass-cockpit aircraft--have been used in pilot training for several years. Initially, owners of aircraft such as the Cirrus SR20 and SR22 and the Columbia series wanted to learn to fly their new aircraft. Then, some flight academies and aviation universities moved toward glass cockpits in particular, noting that modern airliners and business jets have glass cockpits--why not train their pilots on glass from the beginning?

Now, glass cockpits are available in training aircraft sold by Cessna, Diamond, Piper, and other manufacturers. How popular are they? In all likelihood, Cessna will never build another 172 with analog instruments.

No general aviation pilot has to go glass, and it's OK if you don't want to. Just realize that the opportunities to make the transition will continue to increase.

It's all about scenarios

For Paul Craig, it comes down to learning how to make decisions. And scenarios may be the key.

"Let's face it, good instructors have been using scenarios all along," said Craig, head of the aerospace program at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. "The difference, in my mind, between what we've been doing [in aviation training] and FITS is that a properly prepared scenario has a consequence involved. In our scenario-based syllabus we do our best to build in these real-world scenarios that students will be faced with."

Today's flight training is based on learning maneuvers, he explained. "We're not anti-maneuvers, we're pro-skills," he said. "We're trying to teach pilots to say 'no.'"

Craig believes that TAA is the hook FITS is latching onto. "We could have done FITS 10, 15, 20 years ago--it's not exclusive to this new technology," Craig said. "From our experience FITS has more effect on the end results than the TAA, but if the TAA helps get us there, it's great."

Under Craig's leadership, Middle Tennessee is conducting comprehensive research into flight training. Funding for the SAFER project, or SATS Aerospace Flight Education Research, came from NASA's Small Airplane Transportation System program. Researchers began by documenting setbacks in primary training--you could also call them bottlenecks or learning plateaus--basically, whenever a student doesn't progress as desired and must repeat a lesson. Then a generic FITS syllabus, which had been written but never used "on real people," was adopted.

Private plus instrument

Middle Tennessee's program integrates the private pilot certificate and instrument rating into one scenario-based syllabus. Based on the current FAA practical test standards for each credential, the school does have an FAA waiver allowing students who are not yet private pilots to take the instrument-rating practical test (otherwise, the private pilot checkride would have to be completed before the instrument checkride could begin).

After the first class, use of a flight simulator was added to the curriculum, which was tweaked to eliminate some setbacks--especially in the area of first solo. What is the result? Students average 88 flight hours to complete the private certificate and instrument rating; one student completed the training in 55 hours (with an additional 23 in flight training devices). Compare this to the national average of 70 to 75 hours for the private pilot certificate alone.

This prompted another question. How would the decision-making skills of students with significantly fewer flight hours--and thus less flight experience--compare to those of more traditionally trained students? A survey of personal weather minimums for instrument flight showed that the FITS-trained students were much more conservative. "The combination of being comfortable in the [ATC] system and having higher personal minimums was encouraging," Craig said.

Unexpected result

The only objective of the SAFER project was to improve training, Craig explained. When students met the practical test standard requirements in less time, it was "an unexpected benefit." (FITS curricula are based on proficiency, or student mastery of the material, not on minimum training times.)

Craig wanted to validate the results. When the glass-cockpit aircraft were used with the traditional syllabus, the setbacks returned. "That would lead us to believe it was the syllabus and not the TAA," Craig explained. "As a flight instructor, my hunch was that it was the syllabus."

A project nine years earlier put instrument-rated pilots in a flight simulator, and they were faced with a scenario. "We sat back and observed what took place. What we saw was shocking." People who learned to fly in a maneuvers-based environment hadn't been trained to make decisions, "so they didn't. When they had to decide something, they couldn't--or worse, didn't know they had to. Some of [the pilots] were so tentative they couldn't function."

"That's what really got me interested in teaching people to fly in the real world--so pilots with 200 hours could make decisions like pilots with 1,000 hours. Everything we do, we do better with practice. We need to practice making decisions."

Will it play at my airport?

Middle Tennessee's flight students are younger than the average student pilot; they're scheduled to fly several times each week, are career-motivated, and must prepay their flight expenses every semester so they don't run out of money halfway through a course. Would its approach work with middle-aged students who may only be able to schedule lessons once each week at a local flight school? Craig has applied for a grant to validate the FITS curriculum at Part 61 flight schools; the research could begin this spring.

A case study

Aero-Tech, a flight school in Lexington, Kentucky, received its first FITS approval in February 2003, and 13 more that June--all for aircraft-specific initial and recurrent courses. Arlynn McMahon, Aero-Tech's director of training, agrees with Craig that good instructors have always used scenario-based training. "When we got FITS-accepted, we didn't really have to make any changes in what we did--just in what we document," she said.

"When you're talking about FITS, you're really talking about the concept of the pilot being in command. FITS calls this single-pilot resource management. It's also about situational awareness and learner-centered grading," said McMahon, who's done a little research of her own. Aero-Tech's primary pilot training courses are not FITS-accepted, but that hasn't kept McMahon from incorporating FITS concepts. She tracked average flight hours needed for completion of the private pilot certificate over a five-year period. At Aero-Tech's Lexington facility, which embraced FITS, students averaged 47 hours; the average at another location, which did not employ FITS concepts, was 61 hours.

"But the biggest thing is, students liked it," she said. "Students also flew more often because they saw the progress they were making. Adult learners respond to that. When a training program has the ability to excite customers about flying, it's great. FITS does that."

One downside

FITS can be difficult to get your arms around, she noted. "In some ways, I don't think the FITS concepts have been relayed in a basic, hands-on kind of way. [If you read the Web site] it sounds like a lot of concepts. But nobody says you've got to leap in over your head. Add a piece and see how it fits, then add another, and pretty soon you get it."

McMahon said that FITS makes sense from both a training and a business standpoint. Training instructors is the toughest part, she observed. "Even if you choose not to embrace all of the FITS tenets there are a lot of them that just make sense."

She reports one downside. In primary training, FITS is front-loaded, which means students solo a bit later, with more flight hours. "This can be an issue if other schools on the field are soloing their students earlier."

Craig's research shows more setbacks than traditional training at the presolo stage, but they're more than offset by the reduction in setbacks in private pilot cross-country and instrument training.

A new approach

Glass Cockpit Aviation, a new flight school located at Republic Airport on New York's Long Island, is one of the first of an emerging new generation of general aviation flight school.

Didier Baco, a flight instructor and founding partner, shares a growing opinion about FITS. "It's not about glass, really--it's about the customer's need to know the airplane," he said. "What we learned from the FITS program, we apply to all our customers," even those whose airplanes sport conventional instruments.

Glass Cockpit's business includes a strong mix of certificated pilots transitioning into glass cockpits--the school operates both Cirrus aircraft with Avidyne cockpit displays, and Garmin G1000-equipped Diamond DA40s--and students learning to fly or adding an instrument rating in glass-cockpit aircraft that, in many cases, they already own.

A lot of students don't understand what Glass Cockpit instructors are talking about when they explain the shift from maneuvers-based training to scenarios. "It's almost like we're just training them now to go places," Baco observed.

Glass cockpits, with their reliance on electricity, require much more detailed knowledge of the aircraft's electrical system than conventional aircraft. "There are key differences between glass cockpits in Cirrus and Diamond aircraft--each considers different electrical items to be essential," Baco explained. Even the Garmin G1000 differs among installations in Diamond, Columbia, and Cessna airplanes.

Under Glass Cockpit's FITS private pilot curriculum, most flight lessons include a trip to another airport. Flights are scheduled as three-hour blocks, including pre- and postflight briefings. A Cirrus SR22 Flight Training Device, built by Frasca and employing its wraparound TruVision technology, fills a room and is used in primary and advanced training. Primary students can log up to five hours in the sim but are required to fly 10, and are encouraged to use it more. "Extra time in the sim will save a lot of time in the air--and money. It's more effective; you can pause it to discuss. We know that in the end, it's more efficient for them."

Challenges and scenarios

Pilots transitioning to a vertical speed tape for the first time try to fly too precisely--say, maintaining exactly 3,000 feet. "The tendency at the beginning is to try to make it perfect," Baco said. "I think every single pilot who goes through transition training goes through that."

Another challenge arises when people try to use all the information right away. "The plane can give you so much information, it's overwhelming. Do you need to use it all right away? No. Because we have some experience with this, we make it very progressive," Baco said. Few glass-cockpit customers have expressed interest in returning to conventional gauges.

Baco described how a FITS scenario teaches judgment. "On a flight, we let the student make a decision--and then follow through on it," he said. A favorite is simulating a dual alternator failure in a glass-cockpit airplane, which requires a prompt landing. Often the student lands at the nearest airport. On the ground, he learns there is no repair facility on the field. "'What do you do next?' I ask. Five minutes away, there's a larger airport with facilities. It's all about people understanding the limitations."

Use of the autopilot is stressed in all FITS training for TAA. "We try to show people that the autopilot is a better pilot than they are. But you don't want to let the autopilot take you where you shouldn't be. The scan is easier, especially for IFR--a lot of information is in one place--but the autopilot needs to be part of the scan."

Glass Cockpit instructors often remind pilots of a basic tenet: "There's advanced avionics, but behind it there's an airplane."

The future

Are you thinking about learning to fly in a glass-cockpit airplane, or transitioning into one at some point? Next month we'll kick off a six-part series, with accompanying online multimedia, that provides a hands-on look at key concepts in flying glass-cockpit airplanes. The articles will be written by Michael Gaffney, a St. Louis-based flight instructor who--like Glass Cockpit Aviation and Aero-Tech--was an early adopter of this new cockpit technology. They should help you decide whether there's glass in your future, and if you've already decided that there is, assist you in that technology transition.

E-mail Mike Collins, editor of AOPA Flight Training magazine.