+1. Huge learning curve.

I flew about 5,000 hours using the 1st generation Capstone equipment in Kotz, Aniak, and Bethel. There were tons of terrain errors in the maps. Not big ones, but big enough that you'd whack the rocks if depending solely on the moving map with no intimate local knowledge when you were down on the deck working hard, flying really low vis and ceilings.

The other issue I had was when I incorporated the map display into my instrument scan, was a tendency to focus solely on the display and not the primary attitude gyros. Makes ya wallow through the air like some drunk chasing the damn thing down. And at the time I wasn't a stressed to the max non-instrument pilot stuck in IMC gonna die. I was a 1,400+ hour a year pro pilot flying airplane/terrain I was intimately familiar with and completely at home in the wx. But like GB, I had to fly it every day, probably 20-30 hours total when I first got in that airplane, to adjust my scan properly.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE glass and new avionics. This shit is pure magic and wonderful. But if anybody thinks this will help them with inadvertent IMC without training and practice to proficiency, I have serious doubts.

Some of you guys with this equipment need to go up in actual IMC with instructor/rated pilot, get a block of airspace to play in, and go try it. Different scenarios, with both instrument and non-instrument pilots, from enroute IMC and transitioning from panel to ipad, to the scud run turned bad and going solely to the ipad to turn around surrounded by terrain.

It'd be an interesting report to read.

Gump

GumpAir wrote:+1. Huge learning curve.

I flew about 5,000 hours using the 1st generation Capstone equipment in Kotz, Aniak, and Bethel. There were tons of terrain errors in the maps. Not big ones, but big enough that you'd whack the rocks if depending solely on the moving map with no intimate local knowledge when you were down on the deck working hard, flying really low vis and ceilings.

The other issue I had was when I incorporated the map display into my instrument scan, was a tendency to focus solely on the display and not the primary attitude gyros. Makes ya wallow through the air like some drunk chasing the damn thing down. And at the time I wasn't a stressed to the max non-instrument pilot stuck in IMC gonna die. I was a 1,400+ hour a year pro pilot flying airplane/terrain I was intimately familiar with and completely at home in the wx. But like GB, I had to fly it every day, probably 20-30 hours total when I first got in that airplane, to adjust my scan properly.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE glass and new avionics. This shit is pure magic and wonderful. But if anybody thinks this will help them with inadvertent IMC without training and practice to proficiency, I have serious doubts.

Some of you guys with this equipment need to go up in actual IMC with instructor/rated pilot, get a block of airspace to play in, and go try it. Different scenarios, with both instrument and non-instrument pilots, from enroute IMC and transitioning from panel to ipad, to the scud run turned bad and going solely to the ipad to turn around surrounded by terrain.

It'd be an interesting report to read.

Gump

You got it.

I thought it was totally going to be a get out of jail free card. Not even close. Wouldn't spend the money again. It's a great tool but no substitute for the experience that I lack.

A1Skinner wrote:FWIW, as cool as SV is, I would not trust it. Flying down the river valley the other day had me bouncing off the banks on one side and well clear on the other. It was maybe 100 feet off, but in those conditions 100 feet will kill you. This was on my 796.

Totally agree.

If you needed to use GPS or Synthetic Vision to survive an emergency, maybe it would help, depending on the situation... But it's not *completely* accurate.

I definitely think it's not good enough to risk flight into poor visibility amongst tight terrain. Watching the GPS track in mountains vs the Garmin terrain is enough to convince me.

Garmin must think I can fly through mountains. Obviously it's more or less accurate depending how many satellites are obscured.

A couple a years back I remember watching a video of some guys in a bonanza flying out of Los A headed for Nevada in bad weather. They were filming the trip to show how synthetic vision gear made the trip so safe. Landed at the end of the flight and while refueling found a tree branch stuck in the wing tip light housing.

GumpAir wrote:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r2MVDY8o7Bs

Holy Shit

Crzyivan13 wrote:

GumpAir wrote:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r2MVDY8o7Bs

Holy Shit

Holy shit is right. Those guys are soooooooooooooo lucky!

Very dumb airplane driver. With that Garmin, and what looks like an MX-20 in the panel, you could fly that Bonanza pretty much anywhere on the planet safely.

Well-managed, SV should make filed and legal IFR flight easier for a proficient pilot.

It is a terrible idea to try to use it to fly through the rocks as if VFR. Accident waiting to happen.

IMHO.

Gump,

I've never used the glass and am curious. Is it analogue or digital? Our calibrated brains can keep the wings perfectly level with analogue and vacumn gauges. We just dynamically and proactively work our feet a bit to keep the DG or even compass from moving.

When they went to digital engine instruments that were totally unreadable, I was afraid they might do that with the vacumn gauges. Do the little zeros and ones in a computer act like that digital crap?

Jim

Jim,

This stuff is all digital. But it's a far cry from what the old digital engine gauges used to look like. Think the difference between a 1975 Texas Instruments pocket calculator and an iphone.

The new stuff is bright, beautiful, and like looking out the window. Magic.



The human brain and eye does a fantastic job of creating a horizon in space out of minimal visual cues. That's why I've been ranting on here for years about the dangers of flying in whiteout conditions, and how a sliver of dirt creek bank, or a row of willow, can turn you and your airplane 90 degrees to the actual horizon, and kill you dead in seconds.

The glass screens are so much easier to interpret than the old vacuum guages. Especially in poor light, and for us old farts with failing eyesight.

Gump

Thanks Gump,

Looks like it could help with MVFR. I wouldn't trust it for towers. They go up quickly. Called a backhoe on the line one week. Tower there the next week.

Do you use the glass DG and AH when IMC?

Jim

contactflying wrote:Do you use the glass DG and AH when IMC?

Ha Ha! Hell no. I flew glass in one corporate job I had in the King Air, and right seat time doing charters in a CJ. The rest of my time was all steam gauges, ADF, VOR, and the last 15 years GPS. With the last five years in Kotzebue with moving map GPS and the Capstone equipment.

I started out in Barrow in 1979 pretty much learning needle-ball-airspeed IMC as a way to get around, and thinking a six-pack panel with a working ADF was magic. And so easy it was like cheating.

Gump

Same here. Army aircraft didn't have VOR until after Vietnam. RMI really helped with ADF, however.

Misleading question though. I was wondering if the glass stuff is certified IFR. Is vacumn stuff required in case the computer fails?

I used the synthetic vision on a lowly G300 in a Cessna Sky catcher my buddy (who no longer had a medical) rented. I got curious as to how much I could do with it. Flew it to the airport and landed it under the hood (my friend in the right seat). I'm not saying I would use it as a scud running tool, but if there were no other options, I think I could survive with it. This was not in Mountainous terrain.

I don't have a ton of hours, but about 50 hours behind a Garmin G1000 synthetic vision equipped plane doing my instrument rating. It is an unbelievably capable system that far exceeds, in every aspect, the capability of steam gauges. The only aspect that everyone points to is computer (AHRS or Air Data Computer) failure, but I would suspect that it is no less likely than gyro, pitot static, or vacuum failure in steam gauges. The plane that I fly has a back up altimeter, ASI, and attitude indicator. As part of the instrument rating in a glass cockpit, part of the IFR rating check ride is to fly and conduct an approach with AHRS failure and to fly the approach on standby instruments and the compass.

It did take me about 15 hours of flying and 20 hours of studying the POH to feel that I was not behind the airplane while learning all the capabilities of the G1000. I have had the opportunity to fly in actual IMC on an IFR flight plan with both the G1000 and traditional steam gauge six pack and I would choose the G1000 any day of the week and twice on Sunday. I find that the instrument scan integrated with the moving map and engine information system to be far easier that steam gauges and round dial engine gauges. Maybe I have just become very comfortable with the system, but Garmin has certainly cracked the code on glass cockpit instrumentation.

The plane that I get to fly is a G1000 with synthetic vision. What an incredible system! During my instrument training, I was doing an approach down to near minimums in actual IMC. During the entire approach, I could "see" the runway and surrounding terrain underlayed on the attitude indicator on the PFD through the synthetic vision system. Obviously not relying on it for primary navigation as I was on an ATC clearance and on a published approach procedure, I broke out about 100 feet before the MDA, and sure as shit, the runway and terrain was exactly where the synthetic vision depicted it. It would be hard to find fault in that in any respect.

Did I rely on the synthetic vision as my sole source of navigation...absolutely not! Could I do the approach without it...yes...because my instructor turned it off for about half of my training so that I don't get used to relying on it.

Is the synthetic vision a valuable tool for increased situational awareness...hell yeah. Should it be used as primary navigation in IMC...no...that is just stupid.

Throughout all of this, I have learned how valuable the instrument rating has been to vastly increase my skills as a pilot. If you don't have an instrument rating regardless of every intending to fly in IMC, I would highly encourage it. It has made me an infinitely more precise pilot. I do echo everyone else's thoughts on the importance of currency and proficiency for the instrument rating. Like anything else, it is a perishable skill that will put you at a much higher risk if not current and proficient.

JB

FWIW, from an online interview with the young girl who survived the recent Bonanza crash in the north Cascades & walked out:

Her grandparents didn’t seem scared. Leland Bowman tried to avoid the clouds and used GPS on a tablet to see where the mountains were. The GPS malfunctioned. They went through a cloud bank, and for a few minutes, all Veatch saw was white. She crouched down behind the front seats. “It was white, then I saw trees, then we crashed,” Veatch said.

My experience with modern electronics was the cheap handheld Lorance and Garman GPS. Neither had enough battery to run me all day on the pipeline and I often kicked the cigarette lighter plug out. The Lorance antenna failed while I was trying to get to a near airport in very marginal weather and tried to get me to not only turn but tighten the turn. I ignored it. Neither had any way to accurately mark a spot report. You could try to read a constant digital lat lon readout. If you stayed on course either lat or long would remain, but not the other. Or you could make a waypoint and then look it up. All this while moving across the ground at 130 MPH and writing down the particulars of the spot.

The only reason for all this was that the pipeline company headsheds thought it was the way to go. The guys on the ground wanted the estimated distance from the nearest mile marker post on the right of way. What I did was keep track of every mile marker post as I flew over, estimated the distance back when I found something, checked to be sure the next mile marker post was the next mile, called that in to the ground guys with the nature of the spot, and finally faked a GPS lat lon for the headshed written report. I never got called on it.

A question for the geeks on here. Does it indicate where I am when I first punch the button or when I release the button about an eighth of a mile later? The ground guys said the younger guys who actually try to use GPS spots always end up on the wrong side of the creek.

I expect the military has a better interface, like the Satloc light bar, so a pilot can call artillery coordinates using GPS.