Merits of partial glass

Graham wrote:

Are independent standbys mandatory for all installations? I genuinely don’t know, it’s not a facetious question.

I think they are, but like you, not sure. The only integrated glass panel I fly (G950) is in a Tecnam twin P2006T and it has them.

beware of entire glass panels. At the lancair safety meeting in las vegas 3 weeks ago an Evo driver with 40 hrs TT first night flight at 24,000 noticed something funny with his garmin 900 (experimental version of the 1000). He had a camera in the tail and filmed the entire episode. Still having daylight noted his A/S to be 450 knots and his altitude over 40,000 feet. Then his AOA went awry and his A/P disconnected due to above. Then he decided to return home in the dark. The controller kept telling him to descend until he got about 100 feet from the terrain and barely escaped crashing into the ground. Then he realized that the controller was seeing him at 42,000 feet of altitude due to ADSB info. Completely disoriented unable to make sense of the info managed to land semi visually. The tubing of the pitot tube was relocated close to the battery and when it heated up it shrank. Therefore his speeds etc went sky high. Had an ipad with him but did not know how to use the artificial horizon gadget and his relative GPS speeds etc. Hair raising experience. All glass no good, dont ask why he did not look at the G5 backup he had.

I think that‘s more a cautionary tale about experimental aircraft than about glass panels…

magyarflyer wrote:

All glass no good, dont ask why he did not look at the G5 backup he had.

If this was caused by tubing shrinking what difference would it have made if the had glass or steam? And the G5 would have indicated the same incorrect values unless it had separate dynamic and static inlets (very unlikely).

Well, there are avionics, which some would call “glass”, which become useless upon loss of airdata – one thread. More recent versions solve this partially by using GPS data also.

With the older instruments you are much less likely to see the total loss of so much data, including the loss of the autopilot, if there is a problem in the “plumbing”.

Not sure how Lancair glitch is different from clogged static intake in G1000 or Steam?
Non-event if one reverts to hand fly & pitch & power with hand held tablet

At night, if you are a superman, sure…

What is more likely to happen – loss of airdata rendering “glass” and autopilot unusable or loss of vacuum / KI256 going TU with the associated implications on the autopilot?

Peter wrote:

Not just the spare but also a guy from the avionics dealer to install it, entering the special dealer-only codes to make it all work again.

If you get it from your avionics shop, they should be able to do that before they ship the unit, but anyway, this does not apply to an Aspen EFD for instance, as I said, the config module is outside the main unit. Basically, a setup with GNS/GTN/IFD and an independent glass panel is easier to handle in such a case.

Graham wrote:

You don’t though, do you?

Might depend of course exactly what you’re referring to, but if in traditional six-pack you lose either your AI or your DI you are not grounded – you can fly home VFR without these.

VFR yes, IFR no. I was referring to the “glass panel” packing up, in my case that would be the Aspen. And it would depend how much in a hurry you are, if you can get a replacement unit to slide into place within a day or so, it may well be worth waiting for it. But you could certainly position to the nearest Maintenance if you have to.

Recently I was involved in a discussion with a guy who wanted to buy a G1000 SR22 (G3 I believe) which was non waas. When he was told the price of upgrade to WAAS during pre-buy, he dumped it in favour for an Avidyne G2 where the upgrade consisted of upgrading the GNS430’s to IFD440’s. Selling the two 430ies, he ended up with practically paying for one 440 and the antenna change, apart from the fact that the G2 was significantly cheaper to buy. .

Some Mooneys for instance who have G1000’s are factually impossible to upgrade to WAAS.