Glass cockpit hard to read

To all: Be advised that mxsmanic (Anthony Atkielski) is not a pilot and
never has been
one. In fact he has never flown in a small plane at all, or been at the
controls of anything other than a game.

He certainly doesn't know anything about avionics.

Snowbird writes:

Then you must prefer performing your flight simulation with the B747-100
over the B747-400, right?

They both provide about the same amount of information.

That said, sometimes even the most basic steam gauges are quite capable of
generating information overload ;-)

I find some analog altimeter designs to be rather counterintuitive.

For once, I have to partly agree. There is still improvement potential in
the user interfaces. However, compared to mechanical gauges it's no contest.

Until the computer fails, that is.

To be clear, my original complaint was not about screens in general,
but rather the way they are being used. I think the holy grail of how
to represent flight information has not yet been found. Designing a
good user interface is more art than science, as any computer
programmer knows.

Imagine we had open source cockpit software. It could run on actual
plane hardware and also on simulators, so you would have the whole sim
community writing cockpit software. And aircraft owners could download
whatever new software is out there and try it out (on a sunny day at
an uncontrolled airport:-))The FAA would probably have a fit, but the
EAA somehow managed to convince us that homebuilts are safe, so merely
writing software for perfectly airworthy planes can't be so bad.

Arno

On Oct 6, 11:51 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

People who prefer the numbers usualy don't fly very well at all.

Which is every test pilot the military has used since the 60's.
Minimum requirement is an engineering degree but most have PhDs.

-Robert

On Oct 6, 8:21 am, Arno wrote:
Hello,

I am computer scientist and usually really like fancy technology. But
I just had my first flight with a "glass" PFD (Avidyne) and must say I
am not impressed. In particular reading altitude and airpeed from
these scrolling bands requires a lot more attention than with regular
gauges, just like reading a digital clock takes longer than reading an
analog one. Glancing at it and checking against a known picture, like
"speed at 3 o'clock is fine on final" or "altitude at 20 minutes past
midnight is minimum", just does not work anymore, instead I end up
reading the actual numbers every time I look. Does anyone feel the
same? Am I missing a particular technique?

I'm not sure what a computer scientist does but I'm a software
engineer with multiple patents, etc which I assume is similar. The
transitioning to teaching in glass was almost effortless to me.
Reading airspeed from a tape is much easier because you can also see
trends easier. The only hard part is to accept the fact that you're
not going to fly at 1,000 feet, it may be 1,005 or 995. On an analog
gauge we don't notice the difference but it can be frustrating getting
used to the difference when its right there to see.

-Robert, CFII, FITS trained Technically Advanced Aircraft instructor.

I'm not sure what a computer scientist does but I'm a software
engineer with multiple patents, etc which I assume is similar. The

My English is not native, I guess I should say software developer.

transitioning to teaching in glass was almost effortless to me.
Reading airspeed from a tape is much easier because you can also see
trends easier. The only hard part is to accept the fact that you're
not going to fly at 1,000 feet, it may be 1,005 or 995. On an analog
gauge we don't notice the difference but it can be frustrating getting
used to the difference when its right there to see.

My real problem is that the tape always looks the same. Squint your
eyes and tell me your speed or altitude. You can with gauges because
you still have a rough idea what a certain hand positon means. You
can't with tapes, because whether 1000 feet higher or 20 knots faster,
it looks pretty much the same. The difference is only in the numbers.

Arno

On Sun, 7 Oct 2007 12:54:18 -0500, "Viperdoc"
wrote:

To all: Be advised that mxsmanic (Anthony Atkielski) is not a pilot and
never has been

HIWAS for USENET. G

"Mxsmanic" wrote ...
Snowbird writes:

.....However, compared to mechanical gauges it's no contest.

Until the computer fails, that is.

Mechanics are not failure-free either. In fact, during my brief aviator
career I've already experienced two (2) creeping altimeters and one (1)
stuck VSI. The worst, however, was an airspeed indicator that did not move
until the airplane was up to 35 knots. Makes for interesting decision
situations during take-off. I still don't know if the fault was in the
instrument or if there was water or a bug in the pitot line.

On Oct 7, 12:57 pm, "Robert M. Gary" wrote:
On Oct 6, 11:51 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

People who prefer the numbers usualy don't fly very well at all.

Which is every test pilot the military has used since the 60's.
Minimum requirement is an engineering degree but most have PhDs.


Bob, This would be news to a couple of coworker buddies of mine. Both
of them did engineering and production test pilot work on two famous
fighters. One majored in music (you should hear him play gutair ) and
the other was political science. One of my ski buddies is former top
gun and he will be the first to tell you that the education thing is
highly over rated.
K B

On Oct 7, 2:32 pm, Union Thug wrote:
On Oct 7, 12:57 pm, "Robert M. Gary" wrote:

On Oct 6, 11:51 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

People who prefer the numbers usualy don't fly very well at all.

Which is every test pilot the military has used since the 60's.
Minimum requirement is an engineering degree but most have PhDs.

Bob, This would be news to a couple of coworker buddies of mine. Both
of them did engineering and production test pilot work on two famous
fighters. One majored in music (you should hear him play gutair ) and
the other was political science. One of my ski buddies is former top
gun and he will be the first to tell you that the education thing is
highly over rated.
K B

Which branch of the service where they in when they were test pilots.
-Robert