Wed, Mar 29, 2006

ANN Special Feature: Gauges To Glass, Part I 03.30.05

On the cutting edge of general aviation is the new avionics we're seeing in almost every line of aircraft now. It's not at all inappropriate to say systems like the Garmin G-1000 and the Avidyne Integra are revolutionary in both their scope and capabilites. Today... tomorrow and Monday... we'll take a long, hard look at what it takes to transition from steam gauges to glass... as well as some of the problems you might run into along the way. Now... this isn't a product comparison. I'll leave that to someone more capable. Instead, this is a story about transitioning and it all started back at last fall's AOPA convention in Tampa. There, I was wandering the show floor, minding my own business, when I came across the good folks at Avidyne. They'd set up their glass cockpit system on a Frasca simulator. Without any real introduction, without any training at all, I sat down in the Piper Seneca simulator equipped with the Avidyne Entegra and took off. Perhaps it's understandable under the circumstances, but what I saw was very confusing. And with the rest of the Aero-News dog pound making as much noise as possible behind me, I have to admit... I cheated. I looked out the window. Now, that wasn't much of a learning experience, but I did walk away with the impression that you don't just hop into a plane with a glass cockpit and start burning holes in the sky. So I figured the best way to learn about glass systems was to go out on the ramp and get the full treatment -- Pete Combs

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