Proline 21 help

[jrbevis]

Hey Guys,
Im going to be flying an airplane with Proline 21. Ive been flying EFIS 86 with UNS & GNS.
Curious if any of you have tips on making that transition easier. Im not sure if computer simulators are available to help with the training.

Thanks in advance.

 

[LJ45]

There is a big difference between PL21 in a CJ1 and CL300. What airplane?

 

[outerfix]

Hook up the GPU. Sit in the cockpit and practice loading flight plans and going direct. You can change the route in the legs page unless you get a new Jet route or Victor airway, in that case you have to return to the flightplan page. The scratchpad will take a little while to get used to but once you go proline you will never want to go back(especially if you have the chart subscription).
Congrats.

 

[cezzna]

Relax. Easy and intuitive. Two or three hours and it's like an old shoe.

 

[aufan]

Fairly big change (in my opinion) between UNS/GNS and Proline. Like someone mentioned, just practice. Collins does make a demo for PC if you can get a hold of--it helps. Biggest thing I remember is do not try to relate your UNS/GNS to the Proline because it won't work. That scratch pad is biggest difference, plus no "multiple choice" for airways, navaids, etc--you got to type in what you want.

 

[satpak77]

Relax. Easy and intuitive. Two or three hours and it's like an old shoe.

Disagree. I had maybe 2500 HRS EFIS-85 time and GNS-XLS time in B350 and it took a solid 100 HRS in P-21 B350 to finally be able to relax. Maybe I am retarded.

Did I say 100 HRS ?

 

[rettofly]

Disagree. I had maybe 2500 HRS EFIS-85 time and GNS-XLS time in B350 and it took a solid 100 HRS in P-21 B350 to finally be able to relax. Maybe I am retarded.

Did I say 100 HRS ?

Ditto for me, in Piaggio with several K hours of Efis / FMS time. I fell in love with the scratch pad, and riding the banana to fine tune descents was a plus.

 

[cezzna]

I dunno. I had primus 1000, 2000, UNS, GNS-XLS, experience. It was a breath of fresh air to me. I still don't fully understand the Honeywell FMS in the C-750 and have been flying it ten years. It's a counterintuitive piece of ********************. Garmin was easiest to learn. Would take it over all of them.

 

[satpak77]

I flew and would do it again today in a second, the GNS-XLS 1980's box all over USA, North, Central, and South America. Never had a problem.

 

[Mud Eagle]

I had a career in non-FMS military fighter and trainer aircraft with no exposure to anything like it, and I thought both the PL21 avionics and the FMS3000 were simple to learn and use, both in training and out on the line.

I echo the advice to find the PC-based trainer -- I found one for the Premier pretty easily (it was linked through a flightsim forum, strangely), and although that isn't the aircraft I was going to fly, messing around with it prior to the training course gave me enough familiarization that it was easy to learn. There are enough commonalities between the systems, it appears, to be of value.

 

[400A]

Training CD's are available.

 

[BoilerUP]

Training CD's are available.

Yup...PL21 is an easy to use, intuitive system. Each airframe has its own unique 'stuff' (Premier to CJ to G150 to CL300) but generally, if you can utilize it in one airframe you can VERY easily figure out any other configuration.

To this day, I still loathe a Universal FMS.

 

[400A]

Agreed. Last week I took a veteran Hawker guy with me who had no Proline 21 time. Atlanta-VNY-Atlanta. He picked up on it very quickly just by playing with the system as we flew. By the time we got back, he was not looking forward to going back to his Honeywell bird! Great system.

 

[ksu_aviator]

Disagree. I had maybe 2500 HRS EFIS-85 time and GNS-XLS time in B350 and it took a solid 100 HRS in P-21 B350 to finally be able to relax. Maybe I am retarded.

Did I say 100 HRS ?

I flew both types at the same time. I thought the EFIS-85 was better at showing the necessary information in a readable format.

 

[JettBoii]

UNS is like an old dirty MS-DOS machine while the Proline is similar to Windows on its best day. The 680 has the Epic.....while it is better than the uns but it has it's issues as well. I guess Collins owns the rights to all of the neato mosquito features.

 

[jrbevis]

Thanks guys for the response.
One question. Can you get The collins FMS to fly a heading like the UNS will?
This Proline is in a Falcon 50.
Thanks to all

 

[JettBoii]

You don't have to. If you are flying in HDG mode and you want to join an airway/route then you simply arm NAV mode and it will capture and fly it. If you are joining a airway/route in which one navaid is located on your departure airport and the next is down the road you must take the departure airport navaid and move it to the FROM line in the FMS. This is done by selecting that navaid into the scratchpad and moving it to the top of the FMS; Left Line Select Key 1 ( FROM line). Now your on your way! Hope this helps!

 

[ksu_aviator]

UNS is like an old dirty MS-DOS machine while the Proline is similar to Windows on its best day. The 680 has the Epic.....while it is better than the uns but it has it's issues as well. I guess Collins owns the rights to all of the neato mosquito features.

I would disagree. The collins required extra steps to achieve the same inputs as a universal, which means changes and corrections take longer. The Proline is nothing more than a dressed up EFIS display, but it doesn't show as much information in an as easily scannable format as the EFIS. In my opinion, the Proline was a step backwards from a traditional EFIS display with the exception of the gee-whiz big screens. Not that it didn't have potential to be better. But, that was a King Air set up and it may actually be an improvement in other aircraft.

Disclaimer: I'm flying Garmin Prodigy 1000 right now, so my bar may be set a little high.