(Jim Harper) wrote
Oh, sure, I have a couple of steam gauges, for that total failure, but
if you ask me to do a full IPC to PTS standards without the use of my
moving map(s) would leave me doing it with T&B, AS and altimeter.

Well, in your case you need the screens - but not necessarily moving
maps - for full panel operation. If I were giving you an IPC, I would
configure your screens not to show you a moving map. I'm sure it can
present an HSI and a bunch of engine gauges. I would also expect you
to do a non-precision approach and unusual attitude recovery partial
panel. First, because a non-precision partial panel approach is now
required as part of an IPC, and appropriate PTS standards are
provided. Second, and more importantly, because it's a demonstration
of safety margin through skill.

See, nobody really expects that you're going to do a circling NDB to
mins to a short obstructed runway if you lose your gyros and/or moving
maps. That's not really the point. The point is that being able to
do it in training demonstrates a skill reserve - the ability to handle
a workload far in excess of what's normal for the aircraft. That pays
dividends two ways.

First, if both your fancy boxes go TU, you have a real fighting chance
of getting on the ground in one piece. However, as you point out,
it's highly unlikely. Second, and far more importantly, the ability
to stretch to those limits makes routine IFR, well, routine. It also
makes minor problems minor. If you can handle a full procedure
partial panel circling NDB to a short obstructed runway, then copying
a complex clearance and verifying it while hand flying in turbulence
becomes a non-event. Is it important to do that when you have a
properly functioning autopilot? No. But it sure will be important to
have the spare cycles when a loose wire in a gyro causes the autopilot
to go hard over on the ailerons. More importantly, it will be
important to have the spare cycles to catch the error you will
inevitably make one day - like accidentally disengaging the altitude
hold while you're troubleshooting some minor item.

My
electrics are 3x redundant, and I have two elecronic boxes, so failure
would be pretty darn unlikely...

3x redundant? Do you mean you have 3 fully independent electrical
busses? Or at least two? My electrical system includes 2 generators
(which, because they don't require power to the field, will keep
working if the battery and/or master contactor fail) and a battery -
but only a single bus. I still keep a yoke-mounted GPS with backup
batteries - given their low cost, it seems silly not to. I expect you
do something similar. An overlay approach using the handheld (not in
moving map mode, if available), ASI, TC, and altimeter makes a lot of
sense to me - as a hedge against the highly unlikely dire emergency,
and far more importantly as a proficiency maneuver. And yes, I would
expect that to be flown to PTS standards for a partial panel approach.
Do you really feel that's unreasonable?

But I digress. My system is not dissimilar to some that are rolling
down the pike...to the point that there will be a generation of pilots
(in the not very distant future) who learn with the moving maps, etc.

I doubt it. In 2000, the single engine GA fleet numbered 150,000 and
averaged almost 30 years. I've just read an FAA publication that
predicts that by 2020, the average age of the fleet will approach 50.
How many of those glass cockpit GA airplanes are being built? A few
hundred a year at most?

And I am sure that there are several other things that...if you
couldn't do it that way, you just weren't good enough.

I think a lot of that thinking does permeate GA. I'm not sure it's
altogether a bad thing. For example, in those days you allude to when
pilots wanted to feel the wind on their faces, because you couldn't
trust the ASI, the ASI's available truly were not reliable. Neither
were the engines - the idea of flying at night in a single engine
airplane without a parachute was simply insane. Much of flight
training focused on the emergency power-off landing.

Back when a pilot could expect an engine failure every hundred hours
(or less), not being able to pick a good spot and put it right there
meant that at best, the pilot was going to tear up a lot of airplanes.
At worst, he would get injured or killed. If you couldn't cut the
throttle and put it on the spot, you just weren't good enough.

These days, the equipment is dramatically more reliable. We now fly
night and IMC in single engine airplanes, even carrying passengers for
hire, and nobody has a parachute. But the private pilot is still
expected to be able to handle an engine failure by picking a field and
setting up to land there. At the commercial pilot level, he is
expected to cut the engine abeam the numbers, no higher than 1000 AGL,
and put it inside a 200 ft window. At the ATP level, he has to do it
three times consecutively.

Perhaps one day aircraft engines will achieve the reliability of
modern auto engines, and aircraft fuel systems will become
sufficiently simple and robust that people will stop running out of
gas. At which point, it would make sense to drop the power-off
landing in favor of a precautionary landing with partial power. But
first off, we're not there yet. And second, I can't help thinking
that important skills will be lost.

An awful lot of accidents happen on landing. I find it difficult to
believe that developing the skill to consistently land on the spot,
power off, won't make a pilot more likely to maintain control on a
difficult landing. The value of the power-off spot landing is largely
(though not entirely) gone as a necessary maneuver, but I think it
remains valid as a skill building maneuver.

Single pilot GA IFR has a hideous accident rate, almost all of it
pilot error. What's more, much of it appears to be egregious pilot
error, like descending below published minimum altitudes, turning in
the wrong direction, etc. In my opinion, it's usually pilot error due
to loss of situational awareness. A pilot who has lost the big
picture can easily make an error that's way worse than any likely
equipment failure in a well-equipped airplane with good redundancy.
For that reason, I believe it's actually more important to train for
the worst case scenario in the well-equipped airplanes - not because
the worst case scenario is more likely in those airplanes (it's not -
just the opposite) but because those airplanes tend to have more
complexity, more speed, and more range - all the ingredients for
making pilot error more likely.

Even when the day comes that moving maps are so ubiquitous and so
reliable that everyone has one all the time (and that day is not here,
and may not be here for decades, if ever) there will still be a lot of
value to flying without them in recurrent training. Maintaining
situational awareness without the moving map is more demanding. It
requires that the pilot think faster, and integrate more sources of
information to build a complete picture. Developing situational
awareness skills is vitally important - especially as it seems that so
many IFR accidents are the result of deficiencies in those very
skills.

A good friend of mine recently had to give up flying the 727 because
his airline retired them. He is now in an Airbus. Unlike the
majority of Airbus captains, he makes it a point to hand fly it (to
the extent the equipment allows it) any time it's below the flight
levels, even though it's totally unnecessary. He has two reasons -
first, it actually is possible, with enough failures, to get down to
the point where it's necessary. However, even he admits this is
highly unlikely - only happened a couple of times in twenty years of
operation. Second, and far more improtantly, at his airline the
Airbus fleet has a disproportionate share of the minor incidents -
blown tires, hard landings, operational errors - that sort of thing.
He fully believes that this is the result of skill deterioration among
the crews. His airline has recently added the hand-flying he does to
the recurrent training regimen.

Michael