Transitioning to, or learning on a glass panel does not need to be
difficult or take hours and hours of training. To do so means some
very important steps have been left out of the learning cycle, or the
cycle was not taken in logical order.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

I don't know that I can agree with you Roger. I recently had a chance to
fly a Cessna 421C with the Chelton Synthetic Vision TM installed. I had no
previous experience with EFIS and had only a short time to read the basics
out of the manual. My flight was about 1 1/2 hours in VFR and I had a
safety pilot with me to watch for traffic as I knew I would be head down and
locked for a good portion of the time. The system presents an overwhelming
amount of information and it is shown in an unfamiliar format. I know it
would take me another 5-10 hours of flight time with the system before I
would be launching into any IFR flight that required an approach. I have a
good amount of time in the Cessna 421C so flying the aircraft is not a
problem, interpreting and following the EFIS is.

With all that being said the system is wondeful with what it can do and I
believe it is the way of the future. The only problem I see is pilots like
me who grew up on the gauges switching over to the tubes. The company that
owns the aircraft plans on putting it on a FAR 135 certificate. I am going
to try to follow it's progress to see if the FAA requires any special
training.

Allen