Computers and stuff in airplanes

[cliffy]

Rather than hijack a thread on FF systems I'll start this

 

I find all this new computer stuff fascinating. But then again I may be a Luddite.

 

Us old farts flew for decades without all this stuff, blissfully unaware, using the same engines of today with few problems. 

 

I know my engine burns 10 gallons the first hour, 9 the second and 8.5 following hours. Checked it on many flights during my 1400 hrs in it BUT I do have an EI  FF system installed just for reference.

 

GPS is nice but it doesn't replace charts or, then again, it may become the standard way of things in time. Luddite again. 

 

Autopilots are nice but many are losing hand flying skills because of them (autopilot cripples we used call them in the 121 world).

 

Eddie Rickenbacker (famous WW1 fighter pilot) who ran Eastern Airlines would never install A/Ps in the airplane because he paid his pilots to fly and not just sit there.  

 

I liked the panel presentation on the 757 (Aspen display) but the G1000 loses me. Luddite again.

 

Steam gauges and round, smoky, oil drippin' motors are for real.

 

BTW, the 757 had something like 352 computers somewhere inside. 

[DS1980]

I see the same thing in pilots losing stick and rudder skills. The most scared I have been in an airplane is with another acting as PIC. This has led me to increasing my personal minimums in regards to who I fly with. When flying around I focus a lot on hand flying. This has helped me a lot when the airplane has performed tasks I did not ask of it. But it also makes me look "ludditicious" when working with 530s and such. I'm trying to find (for me) a sweet spot. I don't want to be left behind but I also don't want to lose the ability to fly within limits. I fly with a chart and a handheld GPS. I just bought a Galaxy Note 8 and put an app called "Avare" on it. I am hesitant to try it out as I may like it. Baby steps. Got the idea from Bill Murray.

[PMcClure]

I started flying about 8 years ago, just when the first G1000's were being installed in GA planes. I started on a G1000 C172 then moved to a 1969 C172 then to a 2004 Diamond with G1000. I learned more about flying in the old C172. It was real flying, watching outside the airplane, seat feeling kind off flying. The newer aircraft felt more like system management than flying. When I purchased my own plane(s), I decided to stay away from G1000 systems for several reasons. But I still have a lot of electronics in my bird. I still feel like a systems manager and chief decision maker on long cross countries. 

 

GPS navigation is wonderful and electronic charts are vastly superior to paper. Why anyone would go back to VOR navigation is a mystery to me. I also like the FF and EGT/CHT which helps have more confidence in my engine. The autopilot is also wonderful and does a better job of flying than I could ever do. But I see it degrades my piloting feel and I know A/P's go out, I have had them do it many times before. 

 

Younger people are more accustomed to having the information presented in a digital format and cleaner layout. The G1000 felt natural to me. But for cost, reliability and redundancy, I prefer the steam gauges with a moving map system (530 for example) along side. 

 

But finally, I am selling my bird because I want to get back to "real flying" and long for a cub on floats or something similar. GA travel is rewarding but sometimes feels like a 2nd job. I have decided airplane travel is better left to the professionals. Flying on the other hand is a passion and something I never want to stop. 

[WardHolbrook]

I'm starring retirement in the face myself. You left out a biggie...

 

VNAV is nice, but we always seemed to make the crossing restrictions just fine without it in those old Jurassic jets. 

 

It's easy to wax poetic about the good old days, but we often forget about the flip side of that same coin...

 

A good friend of mine, who is now well into his 90's flew B-17s in Europe during WWII and was called up and flew Grumman HU-16s during the Korean war in the USAF Air Rescue Service. It had been decades since he had been in a cockpit and a few years ago I took him out to the airport to see the new state-of-the-art full glass panel airplane I was flying at the time. I plugged in the GPU and lit up the panel. He was astounded by all of the capability that we had in our glass panel - triple FMSes, dual IRSes, dual digital autopilots, VNAV, etc. etc. etc. He asked all kinds of questions about what it could do and how accurate it was. He just sat there looking at our panel then my old friend got very emotional and started talking about how many lives would have been saved back in the day with equipment like that. Sometimes the good old days aren't quite as good as we might have thought.

 

In the good old days it took a squadron of B-17s and 100s of airmen to take out a factory building - if they were lucky. Most of the bombs were dropped into a radius measured in miles. Nowadays, if they want to take out a building, the biggest decision that they've got to make is which window do they want the cruise missile to go through?

 

A couple of nights ago, we were flying into a small airport out West. It was the classic "dark hole" approach. It was sure nice having a computer generated glide path to come down on. I've shot hundreds, if not thousands, of those types of approaches without it though. For my money, I'll take the VNAV thank you.

 

I remember reading about Eddie Rickenbacker and Eastern Airlines. He did refuse to install autopilots in EAL aircraft - that's what pilots were supposed to be doing. The flip side of that coin is that when they finally got their autopilots, their fleet fuel costs dropped 6%. It seems that autopilots really can fly airplanes better than us pilots. 

 

After retirement, I've looking forward to getting back to the basics, but for now, I must be getting lazy in my old age. I'll take the glass and computers. 

[Bob_Belville]

My voice is deep enough and I have plenty of hair on my chest. @ 71 I have nothing to prove and if I never have to hand fly another NDB approach at night with a 20k crosswind or stumble blindly into an embedded cell without on board weather info I already have my creel full. I hand fly the plane landing and taking off but I am happy to let George hold heading and altitude for the hours @ cruise or when ATC barks out a string of route changes right after departure as I'm cleaning up the plane. I can play with the EDM and look out the windows.   

 

I have plenty of war stories but no nostalgia from 2500 hours PIC in Mooneys. 

[Joe Zuffoletto]

In my opinion, there's always a thread of pilot machismo woven into these discussions about modern glass vs. steam gauges and "the good ol' days."

 

Let's ask similar questions in non-aviation contexts:

 

Would you trade your 60" flat panel HDTV for an old black and white CRT with rabbit ears and no remote?

 

Would you give up power steering, brakes, traction control and ABS in your car? Not to mention seat belts and air bags?

 

Trade your modern computer and Internet for a 1981 IBM PC-XT with green screen and a 1200-baud modem?

 

You get the idea. Today's technology rocks. Yesterday's was..., well, yesterday's.

 

Having said all that, I have a G1000 Mooney and a steam gauge RV-8. I guess I'm bipolar. 

[Bob - S50]

If you have all the electronics; GPS, moving map, engine monitor, maps/charts on tablets, autopilot, etc; the pilot can opt to use them or not.  If you don't have them you don't have a choice.

 

An autopilot can make a long cross country more enjoyable.

An autopilot can improve your ability to see and avoid.

An autopilot can greatly increase safety when looking up or reprogramming an ATC reroute in flight.

An autopilot greatly helps when reviewing the approach plate prior to shooting the approach.

Less accurate fuel information is never a good thing.

Tablet charts are cheaper and lighter than paper.  Both encourage us to keep them up to date.

Anything that improves SA is good.

 

If you always fly VFR and never fly IFR, you are almost right.  Just an accurate fuel indication and an up to date Sectional is all you need.

 

Just don't become a slave to technology.

 

Going into TUS the other night it was easier for me to turn off the autopilot and hand fly than it would have been to manage the airplane through the FMS, so that's what I did.

 

I have a few thousand hours of single pilot, no (or unused) autopilot.  I still use the autopilot in the Mooney when it is to my advantage.

 

Bob

[PMcClure]

The old car analogy works for me. I have two old cars, one 1955 and the other 1971. I added seat belts to both of them and also disk brakes. When I want to drive 300 miles at highway speeds I don't even consider taking either of them. But if I want to cruise around on a nice day and see and be seen, they are the the best ride around. Rnav, WAAS, Nexrad, traffic, the A/P etc... definitely makes my bird more capable and safer for travel. 

 

But that is where the analogy ends. Old technology or new technology in a small plane doesn't matter unless we are proficient. With the old stuff you have to be more on your game which keeps you more proficient. But which can lead to errors. With the new stuff, you can be lulled into a sense of security without knowing it. You don't want to find out your pilot skills have degraded when the screen goes blank or the A/P pitches down 15 degrees unexpectedly at night. Tools are great but we can't forget to practice for the day when they don't work. 

[WardHolbrook]

The old car analogy works for me. I have two old cars, one 1955 and the other 1971. I added seat belts to both of them and also disk brakes. When I want to drive 300 miles at highway speeds I don't even consider taking either of them. But if I want to cruise around on a nice day and see and be seen, they are the the best ride around. Rnav, WAAS, Nexrad, traffic, the A/P etc... definitely makes my bird more capable and safer for travel. 

 

But that is where the analogy ends. Old technology or new technology in a small plane doesn't matter unless we are proficient. With the old stuff you have to be more on your game which keeps you more proficient. But which can lead to errors. With the new stuff, you can be lulled into a sense of security without knowing it. You don't want to find out your pilot skills have degraded when the screen goes blank or the A/P pitches down 15 degrees unexpectedly at night. Tools are great but we can't forget to practice for the day when they don't work. 

And the key to all of this is proper initial training and ongoing recurrent training. If all you're ever doing is taking a basic BFR every two years, you're simply not doing enough. If you manage to keep IFR current without ever flying with a CFII then you're simply not doing enough. Grab a CFI/I once or twice a year and go exploring for your weaknesses. They will be there and you will find them. It's what the pros do and they fly much more than most of us. It's not going to break the bank and you will see and feel the difference in your proficiency levels. While you're at it go take an extreme attitude recovery / basic aerobatics course. Again, it's not going to break the bank and you can probably work a BFR and even a tailwheel endorsement out of it - all of which are good things when it comes to overall proficiency. All it takes is a willingness to take a small step or two outside of your comfort zone. The results will be worth it. 

[Jerry 5TJ]

My late father flew Corsairs off carriers.  He navigated with a compass, airspeed indicator, and his watch and kept "situational awareness" by plotting lines on a chart on his kneeboard.  Obviously he always found the carrier at the end of his flights (or I would not be typing this).    I showed him a portable aviation GPS about 2003 and his response was "I sure wish we'd had those when flying over the ocean."  

 

I'd love to have a few hours in an F4U but if I wanted to go anywhere I would take my more modern plane every time.  

[larryb]

The world is a different place. At one point in time it  was acceptable to be lost while flying. It was acceptable to land at some random airport to figure out where you were. Or as I read on another thread recently, if unsure of your position, you could "buzz the water tower" and read the writing on the side. Well, none of that is acceptable anymore.

 

I think what we have here is a completely different skill set required for IFR flying. Back in the day, managing the electronics wasn't that hard. You tuned the correct frequency, identified the station, set the OBS, and you were done. The skill was interpreting all those needle deflections to determine where you were on the map.

 

Today, no interpretation is needed. The map shows you exactly where you are and where you are going. Now the skill set is different. Now you need to know how to program your gps. You need to anticipate what it's going to do at every point in the approach. You have to modify a flight plan and select a new approach in just a few moments.

 

So here we have  interpretation on one hand vs. programming on another. Completely different skill sets. I prefer today's skill set because that's what I learned with and I am comfortable with technology.

[WardHolbrook]

...At one point in time it  was acceptable to be lost while flying. It was acceptable...you could "buzz the water tower" and read the writing on the side. Well, none of that is acceptable anymore...

That would explain all the phone calls we got last week when I got lost in the Falcon. 

[ryoder]

I still fly with two VOR indicators DME and a ADF. Of course I have the iPad as a backup but when practicing ifr I only use the basics and do fine as long as I stick to airways. DME is very accurate and easy to use. Airways are very course but with all the intersections it gives me enough of an idea of where I am that I don't need the ipad. I also don't have an autopilot. This is fun on VFR but can get tedious on ifr. I just allow the airplane to deflect a bit off course to avoid chasing the needle and beating myself up.

I do like basic flying and prefer VFR and navigating by landmarks. I fly for fun not to get somewhere fast.

[Joe Zuffoletto]

I'm reading "Fate is the Hunter" by Ernest Gann for the first time and their first trip from Greenland to Iceland was terrifying. No one can tell me that they wouldn't have preferred modern weather and GPS navigation!

[Jimhamilton]

Today, at work, my average leg is over thirteen hours. Flying at 350 and above. The automation flys the plane, navigates the plane and even makes automatic position reports. When I want weather or an ATIS I just send away for it and it magically appears. I even get my clearance that way. If I loose an engine on takeoff the airplane knows it and kicks in the right amount of rudder.

I like flying my Mooney because I get to fly my Mooney. I like looking out the window flying at much lower altitudes and seeing all the beauty God made. I am not interested in flying approaches in IMC and I don't want a moving map with a magenta line. I don't need GPS and it's great when the radio is turned off. I have a storm scope and I don't know why. If the weather is that bad I'm landing. I like flying, really flying and I don't need all that glow in the dark stuff to do it. It's too expensive anyway. Anyway, that's my view.

[cliffy]

I can hearken back to flying 3 holers down the ILS laying a black trail of dinosaur meat at the rate of 9000 lbs/hr at flaps 30/gear down. Nothing was "advanced" Even the CAT III autolands were manual throttles. We push it to 88 MACH (89 and the clacker came on), it would move but so did the fuel. More dinosaur meat gone. Now we can fly the same number of pax with half the fuel and half the "sound of freedom", as has been said of the old turbojets. 

We do have advantages today with the advancements in technology that those before never even dreamed of but we still have the responsibility to be able to fly without all the trick stuff. Everyone now is just watching TV and monitoring systems, not really flying. Lots of "heads down" button pushing and relying on automation for everything. The main job now is to know how to program AND CHANGE the FMS or other such goodies.

The most common comment in a 757? What the hell is it doing now? Sometimes it needed a reboot so we stopped on the taxi out and shut everything down. and made the plane dark for a minute and then fired it back up. Seemed to work ever time I tried it.

Electronics can fail. One of the first things I was taught when we got flight directors was- 'never trust the damn thing, always, always compare to raw data". That saved my life twice. 

 

I'm with Jim now that every day is Saturday. Take off and shut off the radios and look out the window and enjoy flying as it was meant to be. Been there, done all that fancy weather s^&t. Don't need it no more BUT I'm lucky. For those who want to enjoy that stuff have at it but don't forget that all that electronic stuff will, not may, fail someday.  It's nice, it's cool stuff, has all the TV screens anyone would want right there in front of you BUT, someday you'll be looking at a black screen.  

 

BTW (for those here who fly in the high thin air) we now have an entire cadre of pilots in charge of sweep wing jets who have never hand flown one of them above 280 because of RVSM regs.  I don't care how good the sim is, it ain't that good up there in recreating the actual feel. Some day an A/P is going to fail up there and someone is going to get a surprising wake up. 

 

Those of you who have chimed in here, I, for one, am very impressed with your stories. There are some sharp pilots on this board. 

[1964-M20E]

I have the electronics and like them(panel GPS and hand held).  I have an autopilot and it is great when in cruise or in the soup.  I earned my IR on my former E model without an autopilot and a relatively basic IFR rated GPS and I am glad I did.  It taught me to fly the plane and deal with navigation, ATC etc.  I still have paper charts and approach plates in my lap for the real work and cross reference my position on the paper chart with the VORs.

 

I like the steam gauges though glass panels fascinate me.  I feel that pilots should learn on the steam gauges and basic radios then transition to the higher level electronics after they get their PPL.  Make sure you can find yourself without GPS. 

[mooniac15u]

 For those who want to enjoy that stuff have at it but don't forget that all that electronic stuff will, not may, fail someday.

 

Modern MFDs and GPS based navigation systems have an extremely high reliability rate; unlike older technology like vacuum pumps and magnetos that fail regularly.  Once you add in the redundancy of handheld/tablet based systems the likelihood of a complete loss of navigation information is negligable  If you don't like new technology that is certainly your choice but the idea that older systems are more reliable simply isn't true.

[chrisk]

I think back to my time as a student pilot in the early 90s.  I got lost on one of my cross country trips.  A crappy DG and vague terrain was all it took.  When is the last time you heard a pilot ask for a "DF Steer"?    Folks who learned to fly with GPS (ipad moving map, hand held Garmin, etc) have no idea what they were missing.   And I for one don't want to go back to the "good old days" before GPS.  --On the other hand, I would like to go back to the "good old days" when you could fly over DC and down the middle of the Grand Canyon.

[mooniac15u]

The DC SFRA and all the TFRs is another reason why GPS navigation is so important now.  I few into the DC SFRA last week for the first time.  Given the potential penalties for busting that airspace I'm not sure I would have wanted to try flying there without being absolutely certain of my position at all times.

[Bob_Belville]

I like flying my Mooney because I get to fly my Mooney. I like looking out the window flying at much lower altitudes and seeing all the beauty God made. I am not interested in flying approaches in IMC and I don't want a moving map with a magenta line. I don't need GPS and it's great when the radio is turned off. I have a storm scope and I don't know why. If the weather is that bad I'm landing. I like flying, really flying and I don't need all that glow in the dark stuff to do it. It's too expensive anyway. Anyway, that's my view.

Jim, you might need a Champ or a J3 instead of that designed-to-travel 231. 

[Mooneymite]

I have another take on all this electronic stuff:  Cost/benefit.

 

Everytime I see a new box come out, I ask myself, "What capability am I adding to my plane?"

 

When all the NDB's around me got decommissioned, I got a WAAS GPS.  There was a real capability added to my plane (LPV is the greatest!).  However, when I look at adding an Aspen display, I can't really quantify any new capability.

 

I fly a jet at work, so I have no lust for "gee whiz"....sometimes, I am overwhelmed by the way that stuff sucks my brains out.  When I get into my Mooney, I usually need to go from point A to point B (hopefully, IFR/direct).  How much glass and glitz do I need, or more importantly to me...how much can I justify?

[larryb]

 

Everytime I see a new box come out, I ask myself, "What capability am I adding to my plane?"

 

When all the NDB's around me got decommissioned, I got a WAAS GPS.  There was a real capability added to my plane (LPV is the greatest!).  However, when I look at adding an Aspen display, I can't really quantify any new capability.

 

I guess it depends on your starting point. I added an Aspen to a panel with a basic DG and no HSI. So here is the additional capability the Aspen brought:

 

1)  HSI

2)  Backup AI

3)  Electrically powered, independent of vacuum system.

4)  Battery backup

5)  GPSS

6)  No more adjusting DG every 10 minutes!

7)  Wind speed and direction

8)  TAS

9)  Altitude alerter

10) Minimums alerter

[Bob_Belville]

plus

V speeds on ias tape

airports and more on moving map

selectable CDI, multiple bearing pointers  

tight scan with almost everything right there in front of pilot

[Mooneymite]

I guess it depends on your starting point. I added an Aspen to a panel with a basic DG and no HSI. So here is the additional capability the Aspen brought:

 

1)  HSI

2)  Backup AI

3)  Electrically powered, independent of vacuum system.

4)  Battery backup

5)  GPSS

6)  No more adjusting DG every 10 minutes!

7)  Wind speed and direction

8)  TAS

9)  Altitude alerter

10) Minimums alerter

 

I guess it depends on how you define "capabilities".

 

Yes, I am aware that many of the new boxes have lots of "functions", but does the Aspen allow you to go lower on approaches?  Does the Aspen allow you to go to more airports?  Does the Aspen increase efficiency enough to allow significantly longer legs?  These are the capabilities I was referring to.  

 

This is not to say that an Aspen isn't a wonderful "enhancement" to an old panel.  It definitely makes the pilot's job easier.