Plane crash in Kentucky???

[A Squared]

Here's a good example of someone who is completely dependent on sophisticated navigation flying right into the side of a mountain .

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20021106X05441&key=1

He was counting on the magic to tell him if it was safe, and it didn't give him enough warning. Exactly why it let him down is a subject of discussion, but the bottom line is, it did let him dowm.

Now, if he had pulled out a sectional, and taken a look at the terrain, he would have seen that a direct turn toward Bethel puts you right into a ridgeline, but he just blasted off and trusted that the display would make up for his lack of situational awareness. Didn't work very well for him.

Besides, I don't know what's worse; glass panel pilots not being proficient at old school navigation; or the old school boys and girls not having a clue how to operate glass, and won't dare admit it. I think we're somewhere in the middle of all this, right now.

I think it should be obvious to anyone with a modicum of sense thet a glass dependent pilot who has never flown traditionally and is completely reliant on his glass to get him through the sky is much much worse than someone who is adept at establishing good situational awarenesss through traditional means but who has never worked with glass.

One of the aircraft my company operates is a (realatively) modern glass cockpit aircraft. I've jumpseated a couple of times and it's not rocket sience, in fact it's pretty simple. sure I don't know which buttons to push to make it do what I want, but that's just system specific training, as far as looking at it and knowing where I am, it's not tough. I doubt that someone who had learned to fly with all that help could step into my round dial cockpit and figure our where they were based on the raw data.

It's the difference between not having been trained on a specific system, and lacking fundamental skill essential to aviation.

There's a world of difference, and if you're unsure which is worse, you have a lot to learn.


Again, I want to reiterate that I am not putting down the technology. I am however, putting down the notion that you keep bleating, that we should skip learning basic airmanship because there are machines that can do it for us.

It's like insiting that we should drop basic arithmentic from elememtary education because we have reliable calculators now.

 

[DC4boy]

To the GPS touting guy; How 'bout situational awareness first?

 

[CrimsonEclipse]

And, why would you say that? Perhaps if it's one of those old school low resolution, narrow field of view GPS's that draw a line on an empty background, then it's possible.

However, with today's terrain depicting, visual terrain warning, and audio terrain warning GPS's in high resolution color, the chances are most likely a lot less. And with 3D virtual terrain presentations, the chances will drop even farther.

Just think, someday, even the modern airliner cockpit might have uplinked XM Satellite type weather, dipicting weather for hundreds of miles, instead of the limitations imposed by radar.

I know of several airline pilots who are jealous right now; and I know many retired commercial and military pilots who would no longer care to fly long cross country flights without XM weather. We're all in that older age, high performance experimental/homebuilt crowd.

Yep, once they've seen it, and used it, they certainly know the value. This is fact! I'm also surprised by how many high tech glass panels go into these kitbuilt airplanes. But if you have money, and the interest to learn how to use them, then why not?

A statistic waiting to happen.
What do you do when your precious moving map fails?
Since you have no practice with situational awareness using
normal instruments, you hit a mountain.

CE

 

[epic!]

i dont think this has been posted yet, but here are some shots of the crj

http://airliners.net/search/photo.search?regsearch=N431CA&distinct_entry=true

 

[mtrv]

A statistic waiting to happen.
What do you do when your precious moving map fails?
Since you have no practice with situational awareness using
normal instruments, you hit a mountain.

CE

Since you've been following along with a sectional in hand, on the seat, knee board, whatever; you know exactly where you are, the second the GPS fails. Then just make sure your backup GPS is still right on target. You DO have a backup, as well as extra batteries, and a hand-held transceiver, don't you?

Of course, using high failure rates in GPS's as an excuse to not use them is pure fiction. The chances of an out of service navaid are greater, except for NOTAM areas where it's stated that the GPS may become inaccurate.

I suppose I'll just have to start a set of links to all those flight into terrain accidents, where situational awarness was lost, and no high res GPS with terrain features was on board. The listings go on and on and on. Yes, awarness could have been regained in a second, but not when a GPS unit isn't to be seen. A good moving map display on an MFD would probably prevent loss of awarness, even when you didn't realize it was lost.

Maybe I'll just start the links with Frank Sinatra's mother's aircraft, that hit a mountain around 50 years ago. These pilot's didn't realize they were lost either! Then there is Reba's band, the Ron Brown 737, the AA 757, and, and

 

[CrimsonEclipse]

Since you've been following along with a sectional in hand, on the seat, knee board, whatever; you know exactly where you are, the second the GPS fails. Then just make sure your backup GPS is still right on target. You DO have a backup, as well as extra batteries, and a hand-held transceiver, don't you?

Of course, using high failure rates in GPS's as an excuse to not use them is pure fiction. The chances of an out of service navaid are greater, except for NOTAM areas where it's stated that the GPS may become inaccurate.

I suppose I'll just have to start a set of links to all those flight into terrain accidents, where situational awarness was lost, and no high res GPS with terrain features was on board. The listings go on and on and on. Yes, awarness could have been regained in a second, but not when a GPS unit isn't to be seen. A good moving map display on an MFD would probably prevent loss of awarness, even when you didn't realize it was lost.

Maybe I'll just start the links with Frank Sinatra's mother's aircraft, that hit a mountain around 50 years ago. These pilot's didn't realize they were lost either! Then there is Reba's band, the Ron Brown 737, the AA 757, and, and

Good luck...

CE

 

[lawfly]

Runway 26 unlighted, apparently.
The RJ is glass, isn't it? I don't really think this is a glass panel issue, or even a GPS issue. The practice of setting one's heading bug to runway heading, a standard pre-takeoff practice at some operations, comes to mind. There are heading bugs on full glass panels, too. Whatever your thoughts about glass, GPS, etc., there will probably be more attention paid now to heading indicators/bugs on line-up.
Of course, we don't know all the facts.
RIP.

 

[Say Again Over]

I now only fly out of a hand full of airports, most are the simplified layouts as in the new Hong Kong airport with a four parallel runways, terminal in the middle, how many little fields do the RJ's drivers have to be familiar with, new taxi procedures within the last week, very early morning and a complicated airport layout, tough conditions for anyone.

 

[CrimsonEclipse]

Since you've been following along with a sectional in hand, on the seat, knee board, whatever; you know exactly where you are, the second the GPS fails. Then just make sure your backup GPS is still right on target. You DO have a backup, as well as extra batteries, and a hand-held transceiver, don't you?

Of course, using high failure rates in GPS's as an excuse to not use them is pure fiction. The chances of an out of service navaid are greater, except for NOTAM areas where it's stated that the GPS may become inaccurate.

I suppose I'll just have to start a set of links to all those flight into terrain accidents, where situational awarness was lost, and no high res GPS with terrain features was on board. The listings go on and on and on. Yes, awarness could have been regained in a second, but not when a GPS unit isn't to be seen. A good moving map display on an MFD would probably prevent loss of awarness, even when you didn't realize it was lost.

Maybe I'll just start the links with Frank Sinatra's mother's aircraft, that hit a mountain around 50 years ago. These pilot's didn't realize they were lost either! Then there is Reba's band, the Ron Brown 737, the AA 757, and, and

There is a special advanced piece of equipment in my airplane that helps prevent departure on the wrong runway.

It's called a compass.

CE

 

[ksu_aviator]

Since you've been following along with a sectional in hand, on the seat, knee board, whatever; you know exactly where you are, the second the GPS fails. Then just make sure your backup GPS is still right on target. You DO have a backup, as well as extra batteries, and a hand-held transceiver, don't you?

Of course, using high failure rates in GPS's as an excuse to not use them is pure fiction. The chances of an out of service navaid are greater, except for NOTAM areas where it's stated that the GPS may become inaccurate.

I suppose I'll just have to start a set of links to all those flight into terrain accidents, where situational awarness was lost, and no high res GPS with terrain features was on board. The listings go on and on and on. Yes, awarness could have been regained in a second, but not when a GPS unit isn't to be seen. A good moving map display on an MFD would probably prevent loss of awarness, even when you didn't realize it was lost.

Maybe I'll just start the links with Frank Sinatra's mother's aircraft, that hit a mountain around 50 years ago. These pilot's didn't realize they were lost either! Then there is Reba's band, the Ron Brown 737, the AA 757, and, and

What about last week when the entire south east was NOTAM'd as unreliable GPS coverage? I have yet to see an entire region of VOR's drop offline.

Learn the basic six...F*uck the new Sh*t. When you can fly a partial panel NDB approach in turbulence with an engine out, then you can move up to a GPS. Uh....you might want to try that in a twin.

I'm really going to miss NDB's, they are the best navaid out there.