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When is enough, enough?


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Gotta love the PPP instructors! My last one required simulated engine out to full stop landing on a 2400 x 40 field. I was used to 3000 x 70, so not too bad. Need to practice that more often.

 

Need to be careful doing that... the last PPP I attended the instructor simulated an engine out to landing which resulted in a gear-up.

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Need to be careful doing that... the last PPP I attended the instructor simulated an engine out to landing which resulted in a gear-up.

I fly a normal pattern, with the same gear and flap procedures, for everything except an ATC instructed straight in approach. But I've been here in the land of 5000' runways all year, and I'm starting to lose my short field skills. Actually had to back taxi one stripe to reach the midfield taxiway the other day. :-(

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I for one have purchased my last new car! I'm done with all the safety crap! You won't see me in a new BMW when I can't open the door to back up as it puts the car in park! I also can't stand these darn head rests that cause more blind spots than they're worth. Forget all the rest of the forced safety crap coming! My next car will be a pre 1975 that looks good and I can drive how I want to!

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I'm with you. I test drove a car once, hit the gas hard in 1st and a chrome arm came out and would only let me shift into 4th . . . Salesman beside me said it was to help the fleet gas mileage. I asked if they would remove it if I bought the car, he said no. I pulled over and made him drive it back while I expressed my displeasure, then went home without the wunderkar.

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Ahhhh, the good old days...

 

A friend of mine did a "rotisserie" restoration on his 1965 Mustang convertible. When it was finished it was beautiful - practically perfect in every respect. The car was just as it was when it rolled out of the factory back in 1965. He let me drive it once. You know what the only flaw was with that car? It also drove and handled precisely the way it did back in 1965. There have been a lot of innovations in the basics such as electronic ignition, tires, brakes, handling. "driveability" etc. and we now take things such as airbags and antilock brakes for granted. It was great being able to drive a "like new" 50 year old car and I would love to own one, but not as my daily driver.  

 

I've got a 90 something year old friend who flew B-17s during WWII and was called up to fly Grumman HU-16s during the Korean war. 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 Collins Proline 21 equipped Falcon 50 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, digital autopilot, 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.

 

I guess those good old days just weren't quite as good as we might have thought. Advancing technology is a good thing. Keep it coming.

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You all talk about this new technology like it is some conspericy from "the machine". When in fact it is designed and marketed because the consumers can't get enough of it. People want it, can't buy it fast enough. Apple (and Garmin) are experts at figuring out what toys people want to play with.

The only way these technology companies can stay in business is to sell lots of products. It is one thing to buy a new IPhone every year for a few hundred bucks. But another to buy a new avionics suit every decade for $30 AMUs

It looks like the current paradigm requires that you set aside more per hour for the panel then the engine.

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There's so much that can be done to an old car to update the ride and features. The big difference is that "I" get to choose what I want. There's too much safety being forced on us today. I like some of the new technology and think it can be good, but it's also created a lot of new problems for us to deal with.

I have no problem with technology that I choose, but do have issues with technology being forced on me for my own good!

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I don't have a problem with tech as long as it minds its own business by that I mean as long as it does not think for me or more important make choices for me. When my car decides that I'm using too much fuel so limits my control or my flat screen starts to decide if I've spent too much time on the couch, I know it won't be long before the car will advise the DMV every time I break the speed limit and issues a ticket to my smart phone which then automatically pays the fine by accessing my bank account. And as soon as Google or someone else gets the driverless car worked out we will not be allowed to drive ourselves in the name of safety. As a culture will we permit this well I doubt my gen will but the future kids might think this is wonderful stuff and give up their freedom for convenience and to save the planet or what ever BS they are being taught in schools these days. I like the line in the movie I Robot "robots making robots well that's just stupid"

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Don I totally agree..in Sept at the Roanoke PPP..my evil instructor..took away my left screen outside the marker and just inside the marker said oops you just lost electric and eliminated the remaining screen...its this type of practice we need etc...

Not evil of him at all. Should be part of the transition training for the GX series. Heck, I'm thinking of finding a "scent" emulating  that of frying electronics to uncork on students under the hood...that's evil... 

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There's so much that can be done to an old car to update the ride and features. The big difference is that "I" get to choose what I want. There's too much safety being forced on us today. I like some of the new technology and think it can be good, but it's also created a lot of new problems for us to deal with.

I have no problem with technology that I choose, but do have issues with technology being forced on me for my own good!

That's a B.I.N.G.O!

Why do we need nannies to keep us in our lane and warn us if traffic has stopped ahead to the point where the car will brake for us? Inattention by drivers that are driven by immediate self-gratification. Texting. Retrograde technology that allows us to "tell others" where we are, what we are doing...becaue we are important.

Turn signals? Optional.

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Ahhhh, the good old days...

 

A friend of mine did a "rotisserie" restoration on his 1965 Mustang convertible. When it was finished it was beautiful - practically perfect in every respect. The car was just as it was when it rolled out of the factory back in 1965. He let me drive it once. You know what the only flaw was with that car? It also drove and handled precisely the way it did back in 1965. There have been a lot of innovations in the basics such as electronic ignition, tires, brakes, handling. "driveability" etc. and we now take things such as airbags and antilock brakes for granted. It was great being able to drive a "like new" 50 year old car and I would love to own one, but not as my daily driver.  

 

I've got a 90 something year old friend who flew B-17s during WWII and was called up to fly Grumman HU-16s during the Korean war. 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 Collins Proline 21 equipped Falcon 50 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, digital autopilot, 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.

 

I guess those good old days just weren't quite as good as we might have thought. Advancing technology is a good thing. Keep it coming.

I really enjoy shows like Fast & Loud that take old beautiful vehicles and do entirely new suspension, brakes, wheels/tires, exhaust, ignition/powerplant. The "old" meets the new. Push comes to shove I am a "new" guy, but "bare bones" is not what it used to be. You get a lot of content/quality modern engineering in vehicles..as long as there is choice on deleting the nanny package, nav package...I am good....No, make that great.

To bad aviation technology in ignition and engines hasn't evolved the way avionics has. That said a mid-80's J is above my price point so the "pre-owned plane" market unlike the pre-owned third hand Porsche market is unattainable for me.

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You all talk about this new technology like it is some conspericy from "the machine". When in fact it is designed and marketed because the consumers can't get enough of it. People want it, can't buy it fast enough. Apple (and Garmin) are experts at figuring out what toys people want to play with.

The only way these technology companies can stay in business is to sell lots of products. It is one thing to buy a new IPhone every year for a few hundred bucks. But another to buy a new avionics suit every decade for $30 AMUs

It looks like the current paradigm requires that you set aside more per hour for the panel then the engine.

30K for less computing power than a $500 smart phone.

60K for a 1940's tech tractor engine (at least I understand the darned thing!)

Aviation is an expensive endeavor for what you get.

If it flys, floats or f&@$ks, it's certainly cheaper to rent!!!

Back to the original thread: the "it looks cool" factor has caused LOTS of upgrades, I think, in the GA market. The "next gen" WAAS GPS's come to mind... No new capability of you already have one, but they sure look cool. IMHO

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Getting to the cost factor the BIG problem with aviation tech is certication. Now with synthetic vision on fore flight my I pad will out perform most panel systems for a fraction of the cost. ADSB out no problem for a portable if the FAA would just wake the F up. But then it gets to bleed over to When is enough enough. As for our big beautiful engines they should cost half what they do but there you go.

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Certified vs portable...

Works at expected performance levels vs untested...

The FAA is not asleep on this issue. They are not mandating that you must have color graphic weather charts. They are changing the way they separate planes using modern technology.

Stuff that works at the highest level for critical applications gets certified.

Testing costs huge amounts.

Your friends at G and BK add some profit.

Capitalism in America, freedom of choice, freedom of flight...

Best regards,

-a-

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Reminds me of one of the many knee-jerk reactions immediately after 9/11, when the media and American public were crying out for a "switch" to be activated on the ground which would take over an aircraft and land it without pilot intervention in the event that it was hijacked. I guess they assumed there would be several incidents per day for years on end.

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Should be. But can't be, until testing is completed.

The act of panel mounting doesn't add a huge cost.

Mounting a portable device in the panel doesn't make it certified either.

The modern world has difficulty having pilots maintaining and turning on their transponders and staying out of restricted areas.

The freedom of choice is G or BK or don't fly there after 2020?

I'm old school-ish.

I found flying around with mode C on and my serial number attached to it, broadcasting my flight on flight aware was a little bit of an invasion of privacy.

Now we have EZ pass and license plate readers to keep track of us in our cars and relay speed information as well. Not new, they used to use paper and would print a time stamp and location codes on it.

OK, enough is enough!

Best regards,

-a-

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When will enough be enough? I'm talking in regards to the world of technology. First we have UAV aircraft and then advance axis autopilots , ads-b traffic devices, glass cock pit, etc. Now recently x-plane creator came out with an app that will land your plane for you in case of a medical emergency. I'm not saying it is a bad idea, I'm saying when will the human race stop relying on technology to do everything for them? It is a proven fact that pilots now days struggle with basic piloting when they loose their auto pilots, forefights, gps, etc..... I promise you today's pilots do not have the " stick and rudder" skills as pilots 10 years ago and God knows 20+ yrs ago.

I read and work with people everyday and I see people, mechanics and pilots, lose their troubleshooting skills, all because they do not know their systems and skills.

 

So, if pilots of yore, were such great aviators, why did they die in such large numbers? Every technological device that we have come up with has been in a response to pilots screwing up. The screwing up goes all the way back to the Wright Brothers. This idea that if we all just flew like our great, great grand pappy did, with a bit of yarn on the windscreen and a wet thumb to the wind, we would all be so much safer is bull crap.

 

Like it or not, the accident rates per mile traveled is way, way  down from those of the good ol' days. Changes in systems, avionics, aircraft design and pilot training have made a difference. That is the whole point of learning about crashes, to see what can be done to make it better. Simply chalking every crash up to "pilot error", with the take away simply being to train harder, is counter productive. Sometimes it is a deficiency in the machine that the operator has to work with and an unrealistic expectation that a human being should preform with 100% accuracy all the time. Machines need to be designed to account for our sometimes sloppy behavior.

 

An example of this is the machine shop of the turn of the last century. The machines had little to no safety guards. Wheels, belts, gears, blades spinning around at high speed with no way stop them easily and little to nothing to keep soft human parts away from harm. All was well as long as the human never screwed up and maintained accurate situational awareness 100% of the time. Sadly, workers were not able to do this and people lost their fingers, arms, eyes and even their lives on a fairly regular basis.

 

Finally, at some point, people stopped blaming the operator and had a hard look at the machine. Today's machine shop and factory is magnitudes safer than those in the past. Serious injury is still possible, but has now become a rarity. Technology is good, it can save lives. Humans are extremely fallible and have proven themselves more than able to cost lives. The humans of yesteryear are no different than the humans today. If you don't believe it, check out the pilot fatality rates during both WWI and WWII, the percentage that died due to enemy action vs. those that died just screwing up is sobering.

 

I don't get these anti tech rants at all. If you really want to fly just like Grandpa did, there are no FARs stopping you from doing that. If you buy a Mooney and it has glass panels, auto pilots and radios in it, rip it all out, save the weight and maintenance and fly just like it were 1920. It is permitted. If this is just bitterness about ADS-B compliance, remember, you only need that to go into radar controlled airspace (along with the already mandated radio and transponder) and above 10,000 ft. Fly from grass field to grass field just like Granddad did.

 

I say bring on the tech.

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When will enough be enough? I'm talking in regards to the world of technology. First we have UAV aircraft and then advance axis autopilots , ads-b traffic devices, glass cock pit, etc. Now recently x-plane creator came out with an app that will land your plane for you in case of a medical emergency. I'm not saying it is a bad idea, I'm saying when will the human race stop relying on technology to do everything for them? It is a proven fact that pilots now days struggle with basic piloting when they loose their auto pilots, forefights, gps, etc..... I promise you today's pilots do not have the " stick and rudder" skills as pilots 10 years ago and God knows 20+ yrs ago.

I read and work with people everyday and I see people, mechanics and pilots, lose their troubleshooting skills, all because they do not know their systems and skills.

Dave. Phillip asked the question "When will the human race stop relying on technology to do everything for them"? My answer is: Technology doesn't do EVERYTHING for the human race. We are best served when we use technology in combination with skill and understanding to complete a task. The human race innovates and creates tools to make their lives easier and safer. An overreliance on technical innovation...Innovation without the knowledge and skill to properly interact with it...or abuse is dangerous in and of itself.

I, unlike you really enjoy this thread. I enjoy hearing what others think about it.

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Different skills for a different time. I can't do what my ancestors did. I can't farm or drive a horse and buggy. But I can do things they couldn't. What we are talking about here is replacing obsolete skills with new ones. In our context an obsolete skill is flying an adf approach. A new skill is programming your Garmin.

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I think we all love our tech marvels yes I like watching my big LED TV that's only an inch an a half thick and like having my not so fancy G296 and my IPad but I use them to help me flight plan and confirm what I already knew would be the result of my trip. There have been some amazing developments to be sure. But the systems that are in place that support this tech is also very fragile and when they fail what happens then. Phrases like I can't log in or my hard drive just crashed or I have been hacked and all my money is gone are becoming more common just ask Sony.

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What a breath of fresh air this thread is!

WOW, I thought I was the only dinosaur worried about the pervasive intrusion of automation in the cockpit.

While I am not against "automation" I am against mandated and institutionalized requirements for its use to the detriment of piloting skills.

I come from and remember doing engine out ADF approaches in training in 727s to doing GA LPV GPS approaches today. Both can be done safely. Steam gauges and levers to to triple redundant autopilots with 600 RVR auto-land capability. 

The problem comes from relying on all the automation and not keeping piloting skills. As was mentioned, pilots turn on A/Ps early and turn them off late in the approach. This is mandated by the training policies of the airplane manufacture and the airline (Airbus in particular, yes I'm rated in the 320). A/Ps are generally more accurate and cheaper to fly with them on than off. Hence the cost issue.   The real effect has been documented in the recent crash in KSFO of the 777. 

Way back when, the 757 was called the "widow maker" as the automation was almost undecipherable for many of the 727 drivers who were upgrading. And this was the first generation "glass" cockpit. Not near as complicated as today's glass and automation. The biggest most often heard cockpit comment then was "what the H@#$ is this thing doing now"! It's no different today except that many younger pilots have grown up with "electronics" making the transition much easier but the possibility of loss of hand flying skills more probable. 

"Buttonology" is the big issue today. Even back in the 757 days it took conscious effort not to be "head down" all the time playing with the box. No different today. Syn vision only exasperates the heads down issue by making watching TV more important than looking out the window. Yes, it happens. I have a friend who does contract training for many different entities and he sees it every day even with experienced pilots. He sees hand flying skills deteriorating rapidly as automation and GOOD autopilots take over more and more of the flying duties even in small GA aircraft.

Add to the mix the limited amount of actual recent IFR  flying hours for the average IR GA pilot and now they have a good A/P and TV screen and they blast off into maybe stuff they shouldn't and it spells trouble. The glass may give a false sense of capability and security. It is what it is. 

Glass and automation can be real good or real bad. It all depends on the mind set of the pilot in wanting to be as good as possible and that includes hand flying skills. 

Frankly I could write pages on this subject but I'll not bore you with my diatribe. 

There are some really smart pilots who have contributed to this thread. 

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