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Augmented Reality Meets Synthetic Vision

That is just outstanding. I wonder how long to commercial reality?

Snags and potential failure modes, but still very cool. Put it in my car for directions, and allow me to see the map heads up. That is only two dimensions!! Tie into my car Nuvi.


I was going to record how heavy snow was falling one evening on the way home from work. I could hardly see the road. I used the iPhone as the video camera. I could see much better!!! I used it all the way home marveling at now much farther I could see.
 
Count me with the folks who think this hobby sometimes has a serious addiction to useless gee-whiz.

However, there is one outstanding application in the video, starting at 58 seconds. It's a traffic spotting app that has the pilot looking out the window to see the other aircraft, not head down, looking at arrowheads on another panel screen.

Nice.
 
Wow, that is pretty cool. I was talking with my son who flys the AH-64D and uses the monocle all the time about flying with a glass panel. He is wondering if he could still fly having to look down at the panel rather than just having the display in his field of view.

This is the future for sure. I loved it showing traffic and who of us don't remember flying through the boxes on flight simulator.

Of course - the cool stuff comes out right after I ordered my panel!!
 
Count me with the folks who think this hobby sometimes has a serious addiction to useless gee-whiz.

However, there is one outstanding application in the video, starting at 58 seconds. It's a traffic spotting app that has the pilot looking out the window to see the other aircraft, not head down, looking at arrowheads on another panel screen.

Nice.


Yep.

Needs better hardware though - current battery life of Google Glass is ... disappointing. I couldn't stand wearing them myself, either - too uncomfortable.
 
Count me with the folks who think this hobby sometimes has a serious addiction to useless gee-whiz.

Maybe this should be in a separate thread, but how much really is useless (or more useless than useful)? I respect your opinion so it's a serious question.

I haven't yet flown with the gizmo stuff yet, but have flown some in my Aircoupe without it, including a trip from California to Oshkosh and back. The ability to get near real-time weather on cross-countries especially away from California; to be alerted to other traffic; to have TFRs depicted; to have an autopilot help with long cruises, seems useful.

Couple of traffic incidents as examples. A long time ago I was flying with a buddy in a rented 182, he much more experienced than I. We were approaching the pattern to an airport and heard another pilot call his position but we never did see him until he was on short final.

Another time I was using flight following with a local military controller and a plane whizzed by about my altitude, opposite direction, easily within half a mile. The controller never called it.
 
The traffic and the lift would be good - but it sure looks like that thing would screw up a pretty day!

Dave
 
To me, just another thing for pilots to fixate on instead of flying the airplane.

Take a look at aircraft accidents over the last 30 years. The more tech is incorporated, the more it becomes depended on to take care of business. When things go south, flying the airplane is the last thing that happens, usually too late.

Air France over the Atlantic and more recently, Asian 777 come to mind.

As mentioned, this could be the topic of another thread.

Having said that...it is some pretty cool stuff.
 
To me, just another thing for pilots to fixate on instead of flying the airplane.

Take a look at aircraft accidents over the last 30 years. The more tech is incorporated, the more it becomes depended on to take care of business. When things go south, flying the airplane is the last thing that happens, usually too late.

Air France over the Atlantic and more recently, Asian 777 come to mind.

As mentioned, this could be the topic of another thread.

Having said that...it is some pretty cool stuff.

I've had this hobby for nearly 40 years..............of aircraft accident investigation. The type I was really interested in, has been CFIT (controlled flight into terrain). Got interested, when a four engine (jet) cargo aircraft, flew into the mountain, close to home.

I'd subscribe and read all of the material, I could get my hands on. When the internet came along, I'd read a lot more. I'd spend a lot of time flying over accident sites, and comparing the topography with my moving map GPSs. I became a GPS "fanatic" back in 1993, when the first portable moving maps came available. I upgraded through newer models ever since. I'd even use flight simulation with accurate topography databases, to see..........what the pilot apparently didn't see at the last moment.

Just so you know.................the technology has made a tremendous difference, when it comes to lowering these CFIT accident rates. We can always use a few examples, where technology didn't work.
 
I can't wait for this technology to reach us, it will be good and improve safety.

But the only thing worse than no information is wrong information and until fully developed it can lead to wrong decisions. In military aviation we had head trackers that assured accurate positional information to the depiction. Google glass relies on internal mechanism that's in its infancy.

Putting the little diamond around traffic is awesome. Putting the little triangle 10 degrees off the traffic due to positional error in the glasses could lead to you diverting in the wrong direction.
 
crash

Pretty soon we'll never have to look at the real world again!
My dad was CAB and NTSB aviation crash investigator in the 60 & 70s. Most CFIT accidents occurred during approach/departure with ample information available (talking transport category). If you disregard or otherwise ignore what's available all the bells and whistles in the world won't save you.
 
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Pretty soon we'll never have to look at the real world again!
My dad was CAB and NTSB aviation crash investigator in the 60 & 70s. Most CFIT accidents occurred during approach/departure with ample information available (talking transport category). If you disregard or otherwise ignore what's available all the bells and whistles in the world won't save you.

If we were to say...........whats available as far as the standard nav-aids, that's been used for decades.........the additional bells and whistles, CAN save you. Just a few examples. Accurate topography altitudes for hundreds of miles in advance, versus around 14 seconds. In your face depictions of the wrong and too-short runway. Just two examples, from many, in which there was "confusion" in the cockpit...........which could have been corrected in a glance, with todays technology.
 
transport

I was speaking of transport category, ie airlines and freighters. There should be no surprises as they fly well documented routes with the help of a dispatch department and almost always IFR. They still fly into mountains.
 
This isn't a solution for an existing problem that will advance general aviation safety... this is a crutch for the lazy and/or undisciplined or untalented.

I'm with Dan, this is just more useless gee-whiz stuff.


If we were to say...........whats available as far as the standard nav-aids, that's been used for decades.........the additional bells and whistles, CAN save you. Just a few examples. Accurate topography altitudes for hundreds of miles in advance, versus around 14 seconds. In your face depictions of the wrong and too-short runway. Just two examples, from many, in which there was "confusion" in the cockpit...........which could have been corrected in a glance, with todays technology.

Ok I'll bite.

Bells and whistles won't save those that can't process. Look at United 173. Even a crew saying "we're out of gas" didn't keep the captain from flaming out. How many airplanes land gear up every year with the gear horn blaring?


I can get accurate topography for the entire globe via a case of charts to next to my seat. What's 14 seconds ahead is all that matters when I'm going to hit it in 13 seconds. Look at AA 965.

Not sure where you're going with the wrong runway info, however if the big window shows the wrong runway in front of you it's probably not the charts fault. If the runway is too short when you show up... it was too short when you took off. i.e. thats your failure of preflight planning (FAR 91.103). Technology should be a reinforcement for what a good pilot already knows, it's not a substitute for proper situational awareness.
 
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Maybe this should be in a separate thread, but how much really is useless (or more useless than useful)? I respect your opinion so it's a serious question.

As soon as I call out any particular device, its defenders will fall upon me with sharp instruments. I will say I don't count real-time weather, TFR or conflicting terrain depiction, or autopilots as useless gee-whiz.

Another time I was using flight following with a local military controller and a plane whizzed by about my altitude, opposite direction, easily within half a mile. The controller never called it.

Frankly I wouldn't either. And I would not want a traffic system that "alerted" me to such a distant aircraft (useless). I only want to know about the one which will intersect my position and altitude in the next two minutes (useful).
 
Even a crew saying "we're out of gas" didn't keep the captain from flaming out. How many airplanes land gear up every year with the gear horn blaring?
But the appropriate question is, how many airplanes don't land gear up because of the gear horn blaring and reminding a momentarily inattentive pilot?

I haven't yet seen the Vimeo videos that started this thread so am not implying whatever they show is desirable. However, what's appropriate to compare are statistical trends with the introduction of new technology, not the occasional anecdote or incident that counters the trend. Pretty sure that automation in the airline cockpit has contributed to their tremendously safe record, Aviana accidents notwithstanding.

To introduce an RV into this thread, I'm just about ready to begin installing my avionics, which will be all-electronic ignition, Dynon Skyview (with 2-axis autopilot) and Vertical Power's VP-200 (I got what was probably the last one sold). The latter gizmo is hardly necessary and might well fall into other's category of useless, but since my mission is mostly day VFR, with a bit of night, I felt the wiring simplification, automation, and utility it brings was worth the known-unknown risk of it. Probably only VP knows its failure rate, and there may not be enough flying examples to make statistically valid comparisons, so I can't say if it increases risk or not over traditional wiring. What I do know--another anecdote--is that my Aircoupe with traditional steam gages and a vacuum pump has enjoyed its share of electro-mechanical and switch failures over the 13 years I've owned it, so I was willing to experiment with something different.
 
This is a little different

To some of the nay sayers, this sort of device is a little different. Actually it's significantly different. The difference is it puts information on your out of the window view. That is, as the pilot you are looking out of the window, not down at a screen.

Now, imagine an air racing league for pilots like many of us. Down load a standard course, play it back through your HUD while flying the course. Upload your captured results. Global air race competition without leaving home and it can be done at any altitude with no risk of hitting a pylon.
 
It is even cooler than that: You could imagine it used for real-time feedback during aerobatics training (i.e. being able to 'see' the outline of the cuban eight you are trying to perfect - or your entire routine).

(disclaimer: I'm friends with one of the people that is making this)
 
snipped a bit....


This isn't a solution for an existing problem that will advance general aviation safety... this is a crutch for the lazy and/or undisciplined or untalented.

I'm with Dan, this is just more useless gee-whiz stuff.




I can get accurate topography for the entire globe via a case of charts to next to my seat. What's 14 seconds ahead is all that matters when I'm going to hit it in 13 seconds. Look at AA 965. .


Oh.............I've certainly looked at AA 965. Plenty of times. That's where my 14 second terrain warning (posted earlier in thread)comes from. 189 people died in that crash, of an American Airlines 757, when it hit the mountain in the Cali, Columbia area. This accident was followed on, by the infamous "Children of the Magenta Line" video.................which some instructors still foolishly push, when they still believe we should be living in the "old school" days, instead of a bit of investment in modern technology. I have a saying. "If your instructor, says to throw that GPS into the backseat, with a stupid grin on their face, then throw them out!"

Trouble is, "Children of the Magenta Line", is sorely out of date. The whole lecture is based on technology dependance, which is primitive compared to today's standards. Fact, a Garmin portable such as we use in our RV's or the Garmin 1000 system as used in many Cessna trainers............would have easily prevented this accident. Modern screens contain the "big picture" of terrain and navaids for hundreds of miles in the distance. That's warning for hundreds of miles, and not just 14 seconds from a radar altimeter.

But what the ####. Some pilots don't need this stuff! Maybe they're to macho, too disciplined or too talented. Maybe they'll never make a mistake. But maybe they will. Perhaps the 189 soles aboard, might have preferred new technology, had it been available! In the meantime, I have plenty of files. Many years worth, actually.........that detail the total scenario, and causes of many airplane accidents..........thanks to the limitations of the old ways. If you want aviation safety, then bring on the modern tech. Forget that old school stuff!!!!

P.S. --- you might as well use the example of two CFI's, and the Garmin 1000 too. A short night flight out of Vegas.
 
"This isn't a solution for an existing problem that will advance general aviation safety... this is a crutch for the lazy and/or undisciplined or untalented.

I'm with Dan, this is just more useless gee-whiz stuff."

My question is...........what's the more useless stuff! Some old flight instructor on the student pilot forums, calls GPS a "fancy toy".

A "fancy toy?" Oh really! I get so bent out of shape, reading stuff like this, that my head burns. My wife says I should just stop reading. Perhaps I will. I should just sign off, and forget the internet.:(

I live in a mountainous area, that looks the the red poppy field in the "Wizard of OZ", if you apply a red dot to every CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) accident..........as someone accually did, on a map. A DC-8 once hit the mountain above our house. As I look out the window now, towards a mountain, an airliner hit the peak in 1936 and wasn't found for six months, as it pushed over the summit, 500' down into a ravine and was covered with snow. Amelia Aerhart even flew up to look for that one.
 
My question is...........what's the more useless stuff! Some old flight instructor on the student pilot forums, calls GPS a "fancy toy".

A "fancy toy?" Oh really! I get so bent out of shape, reading stuff like this, that my head burns. My wife says I should just stop reading. Perhaps I will. I should just sign off, and forget the internet.:(

I live in a mountainous area, that looks the the red poppy field in the "Wizard of OZ", if you apply a red dot to every CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) accident..........as someone accually did, on a map. A DC-8 once hit the mountain above our house. As I look out the window now, towards a mountain, an airliner hit the peak in 1936 and wasn't found for six months, as it pushed over the summit, 500' down into a ravine and was covered with snow. Amelia Aerhart even flew up to look for that one.

Navigation technology was inaccurate at best in 1936, not really a fair comparison. I'm not saying there isn't a place for it, and that there aren't amazing pieces of gear out there that have advanced aviation safety. EGWPS, TCAS, etc. However you can lump me in with the CFI's that will turn off a GPS and make a student do it the old school way before allowing them to use the toys. I will say that the airspace display they show is pretty cool, but it should only be reinforcing what you already know, which then begs the question, what is the point? Is it detracting from looking at more important things?

Rather than denigrating CFI's that reinforce doing things the "old way" before allowing the use of more and more toys... try getting your CFI. Spend a few hundred hours instructing. Realize how lacking today's training mindset is for those that grew up "following the magenta line" and then formulate your opinion.

If you can't go out, on any given day, and accurately navigate from A to B using a pencil, chart, compass and stopwatch... managing your fuel, location, and situation... comfortably, then you need to get good again at the basics before allowing yourself to fall back into the comfort zone of letting the magic wizardry do all the work. That technology can, does and will fail and it never happens at an opportune moment. Safety ultimately resides with the person in the seat, with the tools and skills available to them at any given moment. What kind of pilot do you want to be when stuff starts to fail?
 
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This is like the never ending story....

Look. There's a place in this world for old CFIs who call GPS toys.
There's a place in this world for pilots who think modern technology is useless.
There's a place in this world for outspoken pilots who feel ok stirring the pot with barbed comments.
Etc.
I can't tell you how many times I changed my view of posters here after seeing how he/she tries to come across on this board. But that's life, isn't it?
Learn who counts for you, and just filter out the noise from the others... They are entitled to their opinions too...
I just don't want them flying with me while talking such junk...:)
I've come close to leaving this board a couple times because of this but here I am still. There too much outstanding stuff here for me to leave. Gotta go. My GPS simulator tells me I'm in trouble. I love her voice, though.
 
Trouble is, "Children of the Magenta Line", is sorely out of date. The whole lecture is based on technology dependance, which is primitive compared to today's standards.

On the other hand, the Asian flight crew apparently committed exactly that error with today's equipment.

But it's intellectually shallow to criticize new technology as a crutch for the lazy, undisciplined or untalented. On the contrary, individuals with those traits will misunderstand and abuse the technology, perhaps fatally, as Asiana showed.

Appropriate tech in the hands of appropriate people is a wonderful thing. Blindly rejecting it or accepting it, without understanding its place, is to be avoided.

I explained my setup before and I hope and expect both are true.
 
Appropriate tech in the hands of appropriate people is a wonderful thing. Blindly rejecting it or accepting it, without understanding its place, is to be avoided.

Right, but the whole basis of this discussion as Dan pointed out though is the question of whether things like this are just "gee-whiz toys" or do they have a place? There comes a point when you have to say "enough is enough." EFIS, Sythentic vision, multiple ipads, etc all great and amazing things, and I own and use them. However I've yet to see a serious discussion about basic airmanship which is ultimately (as you pointed out) the only true safety net.
 
However I've yet to see a serious discussion about basic airmanship which is ultimately (as you pointed out) the only true safety net.

If it was a true safety net, why were there CFIT before GPS? There may or may not be statistics showing if charts or GPS have been safer. In almost all new technology, the new stuff is better than the old or it would fail and people would either go back to the old or further develop better new.

I put my slide ruler away when I bought my first calculator. The slide rule still works, but not nearly as good as even the calculator on my phone. I will admit I haven't thrown it away - yet.
 
Man (as in mankind)+ machine+ environment = success. Lessen or change any of the values to a variable and the outcome of success becomes a variable or lesser value.
 
Right, but the whole basis of this discussion as Dan pointed out though is the question of whether things like this are just "gee-whiz toys" or do they have a place? There comes a point when you have to say "enough is enough." EFIS, Sythentic vision, multiple ipads, etc all great and amazing things, and I own and use them. However I've yet to see a serious discussion about basic airmanship which is ultimately (as you pointed out) the only true safety net.

So..... what is basic airmanship? I've heard it over and over for decades. Would the navigators who had to take sun and star readings against the horizon, think that VORs are much too simple. Not bold and old enough!

I know what I came to believe in. It's the PICs ability to know direction, terrain, wind, and weather conditions for hundreds of miles in advance. It's the ability to make very effective and efficient decisions, hundreds of miles in advance. You couldn't do this with old school basic airmanship and charts. Now we can.

Oh..........come to think of it, those navigators have been displaced. We don't need them anymore, thanks to current technology. We now know exactly where we are, within a yard or so. Even with charts, and radio nav, those navigators of old, still had to contend with periods of time, in which they didn't know exactly where they were, until the next radio fix was available. Happily for most of them, it all worked out. Considering the vast number of "airliner" flight into terrain statistics, basic airmanship just didn't always work.

I'd rather be the "smart" pilot. Not the one that discounts GPS as a backup to "basic airmanship". I want to be the one, that knows exactly what's what ahead, because I have the modern technology to do so. I always flew mountains. I always figured my long distance trips ahead of time, and used current charts to do so. But once GPS terrain mapping perfected, it became my number one nav source, with sectional charts as the backup. The sectionals still remained on the kneepad.

Yet............just a few years back, I was told by a CFI, that I had no business flying, if my OBSs were not set before every cross country flight.
He claimed that I should be using triangulating VORs for mountain flight, and GPS should be backup. He insisted on using "basic airmanship" as a right to fly. Oh really? The big problem for me, is that I didn't have a few OBSs in the panel. None, actually. As I've said, I fly mountains. Nav radios are line of sight. GPS is much more efficient, as far as I'm concerned.

And then there are always those particular CFI's who rave about GPS failure. For those certain instructors, GPS seems to fail at least twice a week. A friend of mine, who flys commercial airliners, in which the GPS is the prime NAV source, keeps a running track of GPS failure........for me. We are now around 14 years and counting.

One thing is for sure. We use to average three CFIT accidents around here, every year. The count has dropped dramatically. Kind of like Alaska, where GPS was finally pushed, as a much better way to navigate.

I'll get off the soap box now. I really do get quite irrate, when it comes to the subject of "basic airmanship"; when I think of all the souls and lost aircraft..........before modern airmanship...
 
Oh..........come to think of it, those navigators have been displaced. We don't need them anymore, thanks to current technology. We now know exactly where we are, within a yard or so. Even with charts, and radio nav, those navigators of old, still had to contend with periods of time, in which they didn't know exactly where they were, until the next radio fix was available. Happily for most of them, it all worked out. Considering the vast number of "airliner" flight into terrain statistics, basic airmanship just didn't always work.

1.) Yet............just a few years back, I was told by a CFI, that I had no business flying, if my OBSs were not set before every cross country flight.
He claimed that I should be using triangulating VORs for mountain flight, and GPS should be backup. He insisted on using "basic airmanship" as a right to fly. Oh really? The big problem for me, is that I didn't have a few OBSs in the panel. None, actually. As I've said, I fly mountains. Nav radios are line of sight. GPS is much more efficient, as far as I'm concerned.

2.) And then there are always those particular CFI's who rave about GPS failure. For those certain instructors, GPS seems to fail at least twice a week. A friend of mine, who flys commercial airliners, in which the GPS is the prime NAV source, keeps a running track of GPS failure........for me. We are now around 14 years and counting.

3.) One thing is for sure. We use to average three CFIT accidents around here, every year. The count has dropped dramatically. Kind of like Alaska, where GPS was finally pushed, as a much better way to navigate.

I'll get off the soap box now. I really do get quite irrate, when it comes to the subject of "basic airmanship"; when I think of all the souls and lost aircraft..........before modern airmanship...

Those navigators are still around, many of them still flying in airplanes with all the toys, but I digress. In airplanes where they have "displaced" the navigation responsibility has been shifted and not alleviated, to the pilots... augmented with technology.

1.) Ok, that's just over the top. I'm not saying he isn't right to a point, but you're also right that in mountainous terrain line of sight is a massive limitation to VHF navigation. But like you said, those sectionals are still there with you ready if need be, because you know how to use them and by carrying them admit there are limitations to technology. You could have shut him down with a simple "and how do you triangulate off a VOR blanked by terrain?" There's a difference between flat out resistance to change, and a skeptisism. The argument could be made you and that CFI were agreeing on the same thing, but in different ways. Really GPS is just a much more accurate tool than VORs, and more readily available. What happens when neither is available though? My underlying point in all this is that people are way to fast to adopt new gee whiz toys without asking whether its even needed, or worse it comes at a sacrifice or sheeding of ones own actual skill. In aviation this is should be more than just a philisophical discussion.

2.) I too fly for the airlines, and in certain parts of the US especially near you, GPS jamming or failure is a regular occurance. There are places we get "GPS UNAVIL" advisories on the FMS all the time. There are certain airports where RF energy (or buildings, terrain) from certain sources just flat out blanks the signal on the ground or will give you false data. We have it annotated and change procedures for initialization. If it were to go unnoticed you could absolutely "boot up" and the box thinks it's somewhere it isn't. Just last week, about 400 miles west of Bermuda, both our GPS recievers just quit recieving for about 10 minutes. No idea why, nor did we really care. There was also a period of time when GPS around Newark NJ was intermittent or non available. It took months to figure out why, until they discovered truckers were using GPS jammers to thwart monitors on their trucks. When they all piled into a couple of truck stops near the airport, it would block everything. You just never know what off the wall scenario could lead to you needing to do things for yourself.

3.) Yet CFIT continues to happen. Look at the Commander that slammed in to mountains in AZ about two years ago, the 182 out of LAS. There have been 4-5 in the last few years around us in RNO, one with a very experienced CFI who knew the area and had flown his fateful trip many times.

Tools are just that, tools. The greatest power saw on the planet won't make a carpenter out of anyone. It's about the meat in the seat.

Just don't be so fast to give toys this big hug and think to yourself "I don't have to do ________ anymore."
 
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Why is there still CFIT after GPS? Or TAWS, EGPWS, INS, etc?

The question is why is there less now than before GPS?

I have found it is much easier and safer for me to see exactly where I am on the chart on my screen than it is to look to my kneeboard and try to find where I am.

There is no argument here. Everyone makes up their own mind on what they want in their plane and how they plan and fly their flight. I am for using everything I can to make my flight safer - for me. If you are a charts guy, great. I have no doubt that you could navigate as precise of a course as I could with GPS. That in itself doesn't make you a better or safer pilot than me.

I just spent over $20k on a panel that will do way more than I will ever need. I have no night flying or crappy weather flying as solid rules I will not bend on. If I could get the glasses and they were as shown in the video, I would buy them and maybe never even have to look at my beautiful new panel.

That is the beauty of experimental aviation. You get what you want and I get what I want. Im not trying to convince you that your way is wrong or any less safe - for you.
 
But yet time and time again I've seen conversations on this board where people talk about how EAB needs to be safer, we need to police ourselves, etc etc etc.

Then a couple of people challenge something, in this case the over adoption of technology and it's cost to fundamental skills and that impact on safety, and the reiteration that pilots get better at the basics.... and we have five pages of this.... Its like someone called all your kids ugly then kicked your dog. Or it's only unsafe and open to discussion as long as it's not different from how you operate?

The pendulum has swung from; unsafe without technology > to a high water mark for safety with tech > now it's gone past the mark into a new territory where the accident rate is on the way back up due to poor piloting because of an over reliance on technology and a loss of basic airmanship. i.e. Asiana, Air France, Colgan, LAS, etc.
 
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I am an old curmudgeon CFI who still believes in compass, paper charts, and whiz-wheel navigation. I love the touch and feel of paper charts and my 40 year old e6b.

I consider a lot of the Glass EFIS stuff and GPS stuff Gee whiz Flash bang Gizmos.

I did however adopt them and incorporate them into all of my airplanes to the maximum extent that was financially possible and I loved them.

I had a difficult time adapting to the glass cockpit, and I am sure that, early on, I was a less safe pilot than I was with round instruments. In the early days of glass there was no one to train us in it's use and in fact no one really knew what it's capabilities, strengths. and weaknesses were.

Much is mentioned about safety of new and advanced systems and aircraft and inevitably the question of what data supports what opinion creeps into these conversations.

Below are 2 links and an excerpt from 2 NTSB studies that have attempted to analyze these issues as they relate to safety. I post them not as gospel, edict or fact, only as a source of information from which you can draw your
own conclusions.

Study of "Technically advanced aircraft accidents" (Glass Cockpits and GPS)

https://www.faa.gov/training_testing/training/fits/research/media/TAA%20Final%20Report.pdf

From Page 17 of the study>>>>
3. The predominant TAA-system-specific finding is that the steps required to call up information and program an approach in IFR-certified GPS navigators are numerous, and during high workload situations they can distract from the primary pilot duty of flying the aircraft. MFDs in the accident aircraft did not appear to present this problem. In addition, the Team believes that PFDs, while not installed in any of the accident aircraft and just now becoming available in TAAs, similarly are not likely to present this problem.


4. TAAs provide increased ?available safety?, a potential for increased safety rates that can be exploited by pilots, increased ease-of-use (except for the earlier generation IFR GPSS navigators), and reduced workload over the life of the airplane. However, for pilots to access this increased available safety, they must initially undertake additional training to understand both the ways to exploit the safety opportunities inherent in TAA systems, and their inherent limitations.

Study of EAB Accidents (Takes awhile to load so be patient)
http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2012/SS1201.pdf

They are both long tedious reads but present some interesting data relative to the discussion at hand and to EAB safety in general.
 
It never fails... there's always going to be someone to show up and say that aviation doesn't need any improvement; "we" figured out the best way to do everything in the 70s and 80s and everybody now just needs to "be a better pilot!"

The reality is that aviation has always been seeking better ways to convey information to the pilot in an intuitive manner, so he can spend less time computing and consciously interpreting, and more time making decisions. The gyroscopic attitude indicator we're all familiar with was developed because it gave better indication of aircraft attitude than relying on the pilot's interpretation of needle, ball, and airspeed. The VOR was developed because it gave better information and was more useful than a four-course range or NDB. Inertial navigation was more useful than sextant shots, even with its inherent drift. GPS has now provided positional awareness to everyone for a comparative pittance. This head-mounted HUD is just another step along that road. It takes the same information we already get from other instruments and just presents it in a more intuitive manner. It's as much a jump in user-friendliness over a traditional six-pack as the the six-pack is over a panel that looks like this:
Code:
Airspeed: 115
Pitch: +2
Roll:  2R
Altitude: 4921
Turn rate: 1R
Ball:  .1L
Heading: 127
Climb:  +98

That's the exact same information you get from a traditional six-pack, but would anyone here want to try flying in IMC with it? Of course not.

Now, if you had the means to reliably fly and navigate in hard IMC as easy as if you were VFR, would you take it? Ignoring cost, if a wearable HUD was at least as reliable as your traditional panel-mounted instruments (steam or EFIS), would you use it? If you could shoot an approach to minimums just like you fly the pattern on a nice Saturday morning, would you really still want to fly a nonprecision approach (or even a raw-data ILS) on steam gauges instead?

Done right, a modern EFIS/HUD/wearable instrumentation package can and will offer far superior situational awareness, even after multiple failures or in a degraded mode, than you can get from a fully-operational traditional six-pack and a paper chart. We're already at the point where the failure of a properly-designed all-glass panel and electrical system is less likely than a simultaneous electrical and vacuum failure on a traditional panel. Why hobble ourselves?

On GPS dependency, I submit that the problem isn't the prevalence of GPS or the lack of "traditional" navigation teaching, but rather a lack of training in proper, responsible use of GPS. We like to pretend with students like GPS just doesn't exist, and we hammer into them that navigating like it's 1920 is the only way to navigate. It's like thinking kids will magically know how to handle alcohol (or firearms, or other activities with potentially serious consequences) if all their previous "instruction" in the matter has been to pretend that they don't exist. Is it any wonder they drop that as soon as they get their license?

I think it's time we accept that a sectional, pencil, and stopwatch is no longer the primary means of navigating. Primary instruction needs to stop pretending that GPS doesn't exist, and instead start teaching GPS-aided navigation in a responsible manner--because like it or not, we aren't going back. That means we spend less time on useless distractions like figuring groundspeed and wind from distance covered and time elapsed, and more time focusing on good pre-flight and in-flight decision making. The manual method goes from being the primary covers-all-bases navigation to what it really is these days--a backup method. If I'm flying a VFR cross-country, and I lose all of my GPS units (and many of us have several--tablet, smartphone, EFIS...), I'm not going to fiddle around with an E6B and a stopwatch. I'm going to use my last known position, which I know because I'm using my GPS responsibly and not just blindly following a line, to find a diversion airport. My mission isn't that important; I'll go land and figure things out on the ground.
 
At the risk of dragging this thread back to its original "vision", I think tech that helps us keep our heads out of the panel and back outside is a good thing to pursue. The goal is to make it seamless and transparent in a way that enhances the safety of a flight without distracting with useless info. As pointed out, one pilot's useless is another pilot's essential. But, information overload can be a real problem in the cockpit and any solution will grapple with prioritizing of data and issues of how to present warnings and alerts.

We are not going to put the GPS genie back in the bottle; the adoption of GPS for NextGen ATC proves that point. I doubt these VR overlay glasses will be the "killer app" but they appear to be another step along the path of integrating an ever-increasing quantity of information into our lives.
 
I admit to being an "old school" guy, but I love my 430W, and I even have a backup GPS. I still take an occasional trip with a CFI who gives me a really good navigational workout. I think he could convince me that both GPSs are wrong!

At first glance, this seems like overkill to me, but... in everything I have ever done, aviation included, I don't think I have ever made a bad decision because I had TOO MUCH information! This will probably come about, and it will be our job as pilots (not just airplane drivers) to figure out how to use it. No, it won't replace flying skills, and we will always have to work on that. It goes with the job description.

Bob
 
I called, they have 150 of their 200 Beta Testers signed up. Anyone here sign up?

These glasses allowing us to fly with our heads out the window showing our course and traffic is a great safety enhancement.
 
We used DOS 3.1 ... ... and we LIKED it! Screw this "windowy" stuff.

Google just showed me I can get a DOSPAD DOS emulator for my IPAD. Oh frabjous day! Headed there now and I bet several other posters on this thread will too! Oh yes, there is an E6B app and an abacus app too. Maybe a sextant app? Or LORAN?

:D
 
So what we are looking at here is a quick $200,000.00 for an unproven product. Maybe more if you opt for the $2000.00 setup. Glasses made by one company, an ADS receiver made by another company and some software to bring this altogether. I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass on this leading edge, maybe it will work and maybe it won't deal. And yes I understand its a beta test deal. I'll save my $1000 for fuel in my plane thanks anyways.;)
 
I admit to being an "old school" guy, but I love my 430W, and I even have a backup GPS. I still take an occasional trip with a CFI who gives me a really good navigational workout. I think he could convince me that both GPSs are wrong!

The Twin Otter that crashed in Antarctica last January was a CFIT because the GPS was 35 miles off.
 
It never fails... there's always going to be someone to show up and say that aviation doesn't need any improvement; "we" figured out the best way to do everything in the 70s and 80s and everybody now just needs to "be a better pilot!"

The reality is that aviation has always been seeking better ways to convey information to the pilot in an intuitive manner, so he can spend less time computing and consciously interpreting, and more time making decisions. The gyroscopic attitude indicator we're all familiar with was developed because it gave better indication of aircraft attitude than relying on the pilot's interpretation of needle, ball, and airspeed. The VOR was developed because it gave better information and was more useful than a four-course range or NDB. Inertial navigation was more useful than sextant shots, even with its inherent drift. GPS has now provided positional awareness to everyone for a comparative pittance. This head-mounted HUD is just another step along that road. It takes the same information we already get from other instruments and just presents it in a more intuitive manner. It's as much a jump in user-friendliness over a traditional six-pack as the the six-pack is over a panel that looks like this:
Code:
Airspeed: 115
Pitch: +2
Roll:  2R
Altitude: 4921
Turn rate: 1R
Ball:  .1L
Heading: 127
Climb:  +98

That's the exact same information you get from a traditional six-pack, but would anyone here want to try flying in IMC with it? Of course not.

Now, if you had the means to reliably fly and navigate in hard IMC as easy as if you were VFR, would you take it? Ignoring cost, if a wearable HUD was at least as reliable as your traditional panel-mounted instruments (steam or EFIS), would you use it? If you could shoot an approach to minimums just like you fly the pattern on a nice Saturday morning, would you really still want to fly a nonprecision approach (or even a raw-data ILS) on steam gauges instead?

Done right, a modern EFIS/HUD/wearable instrumentation package can and will offer far superior situational awareness, even after multiple failures or in a degraded mode, than you can get from a fully-operational traditional six-pack and a paper chart. We're already at the point where the failure of a properly-designed all-glass panel and electrical system is less likely than a simultaneous electrical and vacuum failure on a traditional panel. Why hobble ourselves?

On GPS dependency, I submit that the problem isn't the prevalence of GPS or the lack of "traditional" navigation teaching, but rather a lack of training in proper, responsible use of GPS. We like to pretend with students like GPS just doesn't exist, and we hammer into them that navigating like it's 1920 is the only way to navigate. It's like thinking kids will magically know how to handle alcohol (or firearms, or other activities with potentially serious consequences) if all their previous "instruction" in the matter has been to pretend that they don't exist. Is it any wonder they drop that as soon as they get their license?

I think it's time we accept that a sectional, pencil, and stopwatch is no longer the primary means of navigating. Primary instruction needs to stop pretending that GPS doesn't exist, and instead start teaching GPS-aided navigation in a responsible manner--because like it or not, we aren't going back. That means we spend less time on useless distractions like figuring groundspeed and wind from distance covered and time elapsed, and more time focusing on good pre-flight and in-flight decision making. The manual method goes from being the primary covers-all-bases navigation to what it really is these days--a backup method. If I'm flying a VFR cross-country, and I lose all of my GPS units (and many of us have several--tablet, smartphone, EFIS...), I'm not going to fiddle around with an E6B and a stopwatch. I'm going to use my last known position, which I know because I'm using my GPS responsibly and not just blindly following a line, to find a diversion airport. My mission isn't that important; I'll go land and figure things out on the ground.

This forum needs a like/helpful post button.
 
This got off onto CFIT, I think we were talking about basic pilot skills eroding due to dependence on high tech gadgets. Situational awareness has improved tremendously with these things.

There's no doubt that tech has helped the CFIT issues. I have a GPS in my Skybolt, with terrain warning. But I still depend on me when things go south.

I don't really want a stick shaker going off in the middle of my loop or snap. :D
 
So..... what is basic airmanship? I've heard it over and over for decades. Would the navigators who had to take sun and star readings against the horizon, think that VORs are much too simple. Not bold and old enough!

Speaking as someone who actually owns a sextant and knows how to use it, I can tell you I'm glad to have GPS (2 on board, soon to be 3), and hope I never have to shoot the sun in anger.

:eek::eek:

I will personally make APPROPRIATE use of any and all advances in technology that have a positive impact on my PERSONAL risk/reward equation. Dismissing tools, even nascent tools, out of hand, is myopic.
 
The Twin Otter that crashed in Antarctica last January was a CFIT because the GPS was 35 miles off.

Perhaps it doesn't happen in aviation IN THE US, but I have seen boats aground while the skipper stares in disbelief at his chart plotter/GPS saying "but that rock is 100 yards that way" not realizing that while he may have +/- 6' accuracy from the GPS, the charts were made by the British Admiralty in the 1700's.

:D
 
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