On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 2:05:46 PM UTC-7, Richard Lancaster wrote:
On Friday, 29 May 2020 00:02:59 UTC+1, 2G wrote:
I have the Garmin G5 PFD and love it. It differs from the AV-30 (besides being square) in that the airspeed and altitude displays are strips that move up and down. I use the altimeter as a vario for weak thermals. Also, you can very precisely control airspeed vs a steam gauge ASI.

Tom

Interesting. I've never flown anything with that kind of strip/tape display, and have always looked at still images of such displays and thought they were unnecessarily confusing and failed to convey the big picture at a glance. You've enlightened me to their upside.

Cheers,

Richard

A PFD is a major paradigm shift on how information is presented to the pilot. A PFD really tightens the instrument scan, which is vital if you ever find yourself in actual IFR conditions. I encourage anyone considering putting an AHRS into their cockpit to take some instrument training. One of the best lessons I had while getting my power ticket was a night flight during overcast conditions (no Moon or stars or city lights to give you a hint of the horizon, and, just in case, the CFI put me under the hood). The CFI had me put the hood down so I couldn't see anything and he put the plane into an unusual attitude. He, then, gave control back to me and I had to recover from the unusual attitude using instruments alone. It went very well and definitely built my confidence that I could save myself from an unexpected IFR situation. Years ago, I actually had to during a wave flight (w/o any IFR instrumentation), but that's a story for another time.

Tom