Seeing the light

It was Ed's first flight in a glass-cockpit airplane--and one of my first times instructing in one. We had briefed the takeoff in detail, including the parts about rotating at 70 knots, climbing at VY , retracting the flaps, and establishing a cruise climb.

Ed's a private pilot who is instrument rated and IFR current, and he's a computer whiz, so I figured this transition would be a cinch for him. But his first question--"Where on the panel should I look to find the airspeed?"--hinted at just how steep his learning curve was likely to be, and how much different operating an airplane equipped with a primary flight display (PFD) and multifunction flight display (MFD) is from interpreting the standard six-pack of electromechanical flight instruments.

Once I pointed to the airspeed tape on the left side of the PFD, he got it. And he quickly realized that the attitude, airspeed, altitude, and vertical speed information could be found in the same general areas as a standard six-pack.

But not much is intuitive about glass-panel displays, and there are major differences between the various models on the market.

Frank Ayers, head of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's flight training department in Daytona Beach, Florida, said older, more experienced general aviation pilots struggle the most with new cockpit technology. "It's a big challenge for people with hundreds or thousands of hours of round-dial experience to make the transition to technologically advanced aircraft," Ayers said. "They have to break old habits before they establish new ones. But once they make the transition, they find they have so much more information and situational awareness that they don't want to go back."

Young flight students accustomed to personal computers, cell phones, and video games tend to adapt more quickly and easily to integrated avionics suites such as the Garmin G1000 or Avidyne Entegra. Those systems typically use electromechanical attitude indicators, airspeed indicators, and altimeters only as back-up instruments, so today's flight students must learn them as their predecessors did. Embry-Riddle maintains a half-dozen Piper PA-28R Arrows with "legacy" panels so students get some experience flying with them. But the emphasis is on new technology.

"For today's college flight students, flying on round gauges is like going back to the Stone Age," Ayers said. "And doing partial-panel work seems completely Neanderthal."

GA's move to digital panels is moving more rapidly than even many of those in the industry had anticipated. Virtually no new GA aircraft are being sold with electromechanical flight instruments. And the avionics firms that still make them are being relegated to niche markets. Liberty and Diamond offer Aspen Avionics PFDs in their primary training aircraft, and Cessna and Cirrus sell virtually all Garmin and Avidyne versions. Even supposedly low-tech light sport aircraft are almost universally equipped with flat-panel flight displays made by experimental firms such as Advanced, Blue Mountain, Dynon, and Grand Rapids.

The FAA defines technologically advanced aircraft as those containing an IFR-approved GPS, moving map, and autopilot. But today's integrated avionics suites commonly include features such as synthetic vision, enhanced vision, and highway-in-the-sky approach symbols. Also, familiarity with one system such as the G1000 doesn't transfer to another such as the Entegra, and autopilots differ substantially, too, even within a manufacturer's product line.

Integrated avionics suites such as the G1000 require pilots to learn scores of button, knob, and soft-key combinations to operate the systems fully. And veteran pilots say it can take about 50 hours (more than the 40 hours required for an initial private pilot certificate) to become fully comfortable with the avionics.

For those flying airplanes with PFD/MFD panels, learning how to properly program the GPS is often the biggest challenge--especially in the sometimes complex and rapidly changing IFR environment. Pilots typically spend much more time staring at the PFD than anywhere else in the cockpit. But Ayers said losing the MFD is typically much more difficult for flight students to contend with than any other avionics failure.

"Without the moving map and that God's-eye view, maintaining situational awareness can be a real struggle," he said. "Flying the airplane on the standby instruments is less of a challenge."

Back in the airplane with Ed, I watched as he lined up with the runway centerline, added full power, and rotated at the proper speed. His eyes were on the airspeed tape--and they stayed there.

As he raised the flaps and sought the target cruise climb speed, he actually began a shallow descent. The giant, brightly lit cockpit displays seemed to pull him so deeply that he was reluctant to look outside--even on a clear, VFR day.

To glass or not to glass

By Alton K. Marsh

A flight school in the Mid-Atlantic region reported that pilots renting airplanes are slow to transition to glass cockpits. They don't want to pay for a checkout costing more than $1,000, and they feel they know too much about software to trust it, a flight school official said. Is that typical of the renter market?

"I switched to glass two years ago and it's all I rent now," said Scott Hauert of Phoenix. "The cost difference is insignificant at the place I rent from the most. The glass rental planes are much newer and without exception, are in better condition both aesthetically and non-safety-mechanically. The button-pushing logic of glass makes perfect sense to me."

Thorpe Facer of Urbana, Illinois, said he needed to carry four people, and the only airplane available to him capable of doing that was a four-place Diamond DA40 with a glass cockpit. "I love the G1000 and the DA40. Since being checked out, I have never piloted a steam-gauge airplane. I would but just don't see any reason to do so with the DA40 available."

But Brian Knoblauch of Toledo, Ohio, said, "It costs more to rent glass. Steam gauges looked like they'd suit my mission just fine. I trust several individual mechanical gauges a lot more than a computerized setup. I'm a computer guy; I know how horribly fragile hardware and especially software can be."

Art Jacob is president of Worldwide Aviation Group, which--until April 2008--owned a Cessna Pilot Center at Orlando International Airport. Renters worried that the glass cockpit system software might crash, that it offered information overload, and took away the fun of flying. But the biggest customer complaint concerned training.

"Customers found a distinct lack of study materials available and were disappointed that neither the private pilot or instrument pilot integrated computer-based training courses marketed by Cessna, and offered through Cessna Pilot Centers, were glass-cockpit oriented," Jacob said. "It is vitally important that the aircraft manufacturers prioritize the development of computer-based, integrated training modules for glass-cockpit aircraft."

Jacob said the complaints against glass cockpits overlook the value aspect of flying high-quality aircraft that hold flight instructors and customers to higher standards. "The overwhelming majority of flight training and aircraft rental outfits only look at gross income, total hours, and whether the schedule is full--not the figures, ratios, and financial fundamentals that matter."

Bart Youngblood of Powder Springs, Georgia, is like many renters. He flew an airplane last fall equipped with a Garmin G1000 glass panel and marveled at its capabilities. "Although I had the pleasure of flying a G1000-equipped 172 this past weekend, the simple fact remains that most of the aircraft sporting glass cockpits are just flat out too expensive to fly on a regular basis.

"Even during the relatively short flight I took, I found no problem adapting to the glass, apart from trying to locate the engine gauges at first and trying to make sure to include them in my scan. Apart from that, I think it is easier in terms of scan than old steam gauges, particularly if you've flown aircraft that have the gauges spread out all over the panel," Youngblood said.

David Eisenberg returned to flying recently and had to choose whether to go with the older technology he remembered best, or new glass cockpits. "I made the move to glass cockpits. I had been out of flying for eight years and wanted to get back into it. As I looked into becoming current, I realized that I had to make a decision of whether to become familiar with glass cockpits now or in the future. I decided to go with glass for several reasons: the increased situational awareness; the incremental cost of the glass was not that bad; and the sense of added safety with traffic, weather, et cetera.

"Did I make the right decision? I don't know, but I do feel a little safer," Eisenberg added.

Alton K. Marsh is senior editor of AOPA Flight Training and AOPA Pilot magazines.