Steam guage endorsement

[cezzna]

I was talking about this last night with a group of pilots. There now are instructors who have never flown steam guages. I predict that withing ten years, flying steam guages will go the way of the tailwheel signoff. We'll all be grandfathered in and will thus be the new crusty old farts who wax poetic about the "real flying back when".

There should also be language in the CFI PTS about showing proficiency in steam guages, or a limitation on the certificate.

Any thoughts?

 

[midlifeflyer]

There should also be language in the CFI PTS about showing proficiency in steam guages, or a limitation on the certificate.

Is that "there should" as in "I predict that there will be" or "there should be" as in "I'm one of those folks who thinks things should be regulated much more than they already are, whether or not there's a proven need for it"?

If the former, well, there's no limitation on the CFI certificate now for tailwheel, high performance, pressurized, land as opposed to sea and no limitation of the CFI instrument rating certain types of equipment or aircraft within a category, so I don't see why CFIs would have specific certificate limitations for this.

If the latter, we definitely have a different philosophical bent.

 

[Huggyu2]

There should also be language in the CFI PTS about showing proficiency in steam guages, or a limitation on the certificate.
Any thoughts?

I disagree.

 

[paulsalem]

I don't think it's that big of a deal for a CFI-ASE or AME. But it's huge for the CFI-Instrument. Those instructors, who have never flown steam gauges, have also never had to navigate without a moving map. I think situational awareness is the big factor, not the layout of the gauges.

 

[cezzna]

I'm not a big fan of imposing limitations but.... this will be a growing problem. One would think pilots who have never flown instruments on steam guages would self police and seek out the proper instruction. We all know that there will be plenty who don't. I think it will need to be addressed in the regs or the PTS someday, somehow. It will probably take a nasty accident to do it. Seems to be the way of aviation regulation.

 

[MauleSkinner]

Why not just do it like everything else...get proper training?

You don't go out and do all your training throught he CFI in Archers and Arrows, get a high-performance endorsement in a 182, and then go out and instruct in a Malibu without some level of proficiency in the type, do you? You can do it legally, you know. No further endorsements required. Why should avionics be any different? Don't instruct in something (or fly something, for that matter) until you are familiar with it.

Endorsement requirements happen when common sense breaks down often enough for the FAA to notice it. Apply common sense (yeah, I know...it ain't so common) and no endorsement requirements will be added.

Fly safe!

David

 

[Princedietrich]

This is a very definite issue for the freight doggers. Young pilots are getting the 135 mins through the highly funded (read: expensive) flight academies that use glass cockpit Pipers and Cessnas and Cirrussssussussessussess....... Cirri? Um.... SR22s.

Anyway, point is that when they get in an old freight dawg plane with steam gauges and such they are completely lost.

 

[tonycondon]

I suppose it will depend on how many people kill themselves by jumping from glass to steam without any transition training. If that is a noticable statistic, I would expect the FAA to require an endorsement to fly glass/steam.

 

[nosehair]

I suppose it will depend on how many people kill themselves by jumping from glass to steam without any transition training. If that is a noticable statistic, I would expect the FAA to require an endorsement to fly glass/steam.

Yes, and it will take a murdurously large number of "statistics" for the FAA to have enough "evidence" to overcome the 'Cries of the Public' when they try to require training.

Did you know the FAA can't just come out and say "You need more training."?
They have to hold a public hearing after a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, and the AOPA and other supposedly GA supporters cry out about any suggestion of increasing training requirements. They never can get it passed - not until the FAA can come up with hard core statistics to prove the needed increase.

The 40 hour requirement for Private Pilot was set back when the skill of flying and PP checkride was about the same as the Sport Pilot certificate today:
No radios, no instruments, no airspace rules, no traffic, no night requirement, no PTS, just fly the airplane.

Since then the FAA rule book has quadripled in size and training requirements have doubled, if not tripled, but no increase in hour requirement. So we are compomising safety by "skimming" through the training by trying to get it all into the 40 hours which we can't but the student thinks that is the standard because "the FAA wouldn't allow it if it wern't safe".

Yep. That's the way of it.

Thanks to our government system which is controlled by lawers and special interest groups - not of the people, for the people, or by the people, but by the special interest groups which are only concerned with the bottom line.

 

[Iceman07]

OK, so I know I'm the stupid one here, but even in glass cockpits, are there not back-up steam gauges? Aren't the students taught to fly the back-ups?

 

[xshuttlefa]

OK, so I know I'm the stupid one here, but even in glass cockpits, are there not back-up steam gauges? Aren't the students taught to fly the back-ups?

I would think so, but "only for an emergency", like partial panel. But that's not the point everyone is making. Those who learn on nothing but "glass" are really and truly lost without that map and display. The need to actually think about your position in the sky is being lost to "the GPS screen says I'm there, so I am " And it's true, GPS is great.

But there's no "thinking" going on, except what button to press next. No trying to keep your spot while flying an approach because you can see the next waypoint coming up. The point being made against learning in all glass is the basic skill degradation. Like trying to teach algebra to someone without fully understanding basic math.

The scanning techniques, the building blocks of fully understanding what each instrument represents, the mental situational awareness, is all being lost to the Big Screen. Like the lack of control and rudder usage to those who've flown nothing but trike landing gear (guilty). The skills will be taught, but they won't be as strong. That's the downfall of " zero to 300 hours in all glass cockpits" many well-funded schools use and the shift in aviation to all glass cockpits.

Does it matter? If you can go from zero hours to left-seat in a jet and never see steam gauges, then no. But as the flying fleet stands now, theres more steam then glass out there and those who've never flown traditional gauges are in for some difficulty.

I think everyone should learn to fly traditional gauges, if only for a few hours and then move on. But that's me. I think everyone should be made to learn to drive a standard transmission too.

 

[Iceman07]

The point being made against learning in all glass is the basic skill degradation. Like trying to teach algebra to someone without fully understanding basic math.

The scanning techniques, the building blocks of fully understanding what each instrument represents, the mental situational awareness, is all being lost to the Big Screen. Like the lack of control and rudder usage to those who've flown nothing but trike landing gear (guilty).quote]

All good points, and well taken.

But... Just to play "The Devils Advocate" here:

Steam gauges are becoming obsolete. Look at all of the new GA airplanes that have been delivered in the past couple of years. What percentage are all steam vs. glass? If I were in the market for a new airplane, I tink it would be foolish to not buy an all glass cockpit.

I believe (as you pointed out) that flying by steam gauges will, very shortly, become equivilant to flying partial panel. Even today, if you lose the glass, you have, by definition, an emergency.

I think that within the next ten years, glass will be norm, and steam gauges will go the way of the NDB.

My concern is, like everyone else has already stated, what do we do during the transition?

 

[flyer172r]

Two points I'm going to bring up. First is that as you point out, almost all new airplanes are being built with glass, but in terms of the total number of airplanes out there, the ones that were built with steam gauges is way more than those being built with glass. The production volume is just too small to make a huge dent in the percentage of planes with glass cockpits. And yes, in a few years you won't find a new airplane that doesn't have glass (I almost doubt if you can now), but a lot of operators will still be using their old planes.

Also, you say that steam gauges will go the way of the NDB, and yet even though we've had GPS for 10 years, the NDBs are still out there and operating.