Axel wrote the two posts compiled below while he was preparing his G1000 training, back in October 2008. Read more about the resources he used and what he expected. He will soon post here about the results, now that he’s G1000 fluent. Vincent.

Awaiting my departure to Florida I am currently reading Max Trescott’s G1000 Glass Cockpit Handbook to prepare for my upcoming glass training. I find this book to be a great aid in becoming acquainted with the complex systems of the Garmin G1000. The book is written in a well structured manner and the G1000 systems are presented with clear and concise descriptions and explanations. The book manages to break down the complex systems of the G1000 into easy-to-understand segments and this way the learning process becomes very feasible. I am convinced that the studying of this book is something I will benefit from once I start my in-flight training in the G1000 and ultimately make my transition to glass a much smoother one.

Fellow pilot blogger PlasticPilot recently was invited along on a weekend fly-in in a Cirrus SR22 equipped with the Avidyne Entegra glass cockpit. With his prior experience from the Garmin G1000 this was a great opportunity for him to make a comparison of the two systems. His experiences from this fly-in resulted in several interesting posts on his blog PlasticPilot.net including one dedicated to the comparison between the Avidyne Entegra and the Garmin G1000.

Being particularly interested in glass cockpit systems since I am soon about to start my glass training in the G1000 myself, I read his post about his comparison between the two aforementioned systems with great interest. I left a comment on his post offering some of my own views on the two systems as well as asking him some questions about what it is like to fly IFR in a glass cockpit as compared to round gauges. As always he responded promptly and gave me some good advice on my upcoming glass training.

A little later in the evening I checked into PlasticPilot’s blog again and noticed there was added one more comment to his post about the glass cockpit comparison. When I checked it out I found it to be a personal response to my previous comment with some good and helpful advice written by Max Trescott, 2008 National CFI of the Year! That sure was a fun surprise!

I would like to extend my thanks to both Max Trescott and PlasticPilot for taking the time to answering my questions about glass cockpits and the Garmin G1000.

I will be starting my glass cockpit training in just a few weeks, and so, what do I expect from this new type of avionics system compared to my earlier training with round gauges?

First of all, I expect that the much larger scale of the artificial horizon, which in the Garmin G1000 is filling an entire LCD display – the PFD, in itself will make it somewhat easier to detect deviations from desired flight attitude. That way, during my instrument scan, I should be able to make the proper corrections for any deviations at an earlier stage than what I was able to before and thereby be able to control the airplane more accurately while flying by the instruments.

Less physical work for the eyes due to the lack of physical barriers between the primary instruments, should result in a more efficient instrument scan, enabling me to collect the necessary information from the instruments in a shorter time during my scan, thus allowing less time for any deviations in flight attitude to develop before they are detected and properly corrected for.

I do also expect that the operating of a more complex avionics system in-flight at times will require extra attention from me as the pilot, which in turn may draw some focus away from other primary tasks like the instrument scan and hence may have some negative effect on my performance in the aircraft while flying in instrument conditions – whether they be actual or simulated. I do expect this effect to become less of an issue though, as I gradually become more familiar with the use of the G1000 system. What I can do right now to alleviate this issue is to make sure I do as good a job as possible of studying the G1000 system in advance of my in-flight training. That will likely help reduce the effects of this issue quite a bit during the initial faces of my in-flight glass training.

Compared to conventional cockpits the G1000 hosts a range of new and safety-enhancing features. To mention just a few, a large scale moving map providing a clear and concise picture of where you are and where you are heading using data from the G1000’s built-in terrain and navigation databases, as well as Traffic Information Services Alerts that identify surrounding air traffic are all features that should help the pilot maintain a higher degree of situational awareness during flight. Garmin’s recently introduced Synthetic Vision feature (SVT) is also a big step further in the development of new features that help raise situational awareness in the cockpit.