I did my whole IR training in a glass cockpit (Cirrus Perspective, which is an enhanced G1000). In the simulator as well as the plane.
The options to do “partial panel” work in this setup are quite limited, as you can see from this FAA guide (pages 12 and 13). It essentially breaks down to dimming the PFD and flying on the backup instruments, which in most Cirrus planes consist of a backup airspeed, attitude indicator, and standby altimeter. You can also pull some circuit breakers, but it all comes down to flying on the standby instruments.
I didn’t learn to fly on classical instruments, but now may have to do it. What would be your approach to partial panel work? How confident are those who learned on classical instruments to fly only with a turn coordinator, magnetic compass, vertical speed and altimeter (no gyro scenario)? Should I invest in some FNPT2 simulator hours, or can I also train this sufficiently well on my home FSX or X-Plane sim? Or should I buy one of these very expensive iLevil AHRS gadgets as a backup plan?
Rwy20 wrote:
Should I invest in some FNPT2 simulator hours,…
Yes, definitely.
Not easy to answer, because I come from the classical side. But anyway as I had several failures on the standard instruments in the past, I do often invest time of the annual checkride together with my instructor to simulate partial panel. Last checkride we have done the climbout with the turn coordinator and the vertical speed indicator i.e. because before I had to deal with a complete failure of both horizontal indicators in IMC on nearly the same time and didn’t felt too comfortable although I had the iPad backup.
I think the invested time (and money) is very valuable for me, and I do recommend to do so too.
I also, like you, learnt on the cirrus perspective. If you’re not going to be flying any other aircraft, I don’t see the point in learning on instruments you won’t have.
Much better to be proficient on the type you’re flying. In a Cirrus Perspective you have dual AHRS, so practice switching between them, flying on reversionary mode etc. to simulate what an actual failure will be like.
I only flew IFR without autopilot and without glass (except for a GTN650). I am (or I was, a year ago) very confident in flying partial panel. Using only TC, compass and altimeter became natural and my instructor only made me sweat, when he also failed the TC. A compass as primary bank instrument is insane and I was barely able to keep the right side up.
So with your three listed instruments, ASI/Attitude/Alt, I don’t think I would have big issues (edit: if partial panel has been practiced a lot), except that a TC makes it easier to time turns than a Attitude indicator. In case all glass failed I would ask for a radar approach (in the USA e.g. a precision radar approach).
Just to reiterate the following, since it may not have come across clearly enough in my initial post:
Rwy20 wrote:
I didn’t learn to fly on classical instruments, but now may have to do it.
My question is about flying another plane with classical instruments. I was wondering about how proficient you should be in partial panel. Then consensus seems to be, very proficient, which I accept.
So how fast would you say that the capability to confidently fly partial panel is lost if you don’t train it regularly?
I trained for IFR in a Cirrus G1000 as well, we trained all sorts of partial panel scenarios using stickies and such. The day of the check ride the examiner pulled both AHRS circuit breakers (which would usually constitute an emergency in my books if in IMC). You still have the LOC on the PFD but you need to adjust your scan significantly from “down there” where the backup instruments are to “up there” where the PFD is. I would strongly advise training the revised scan, add the hood and the pressure and it can get complicated and messy very quickly.
I passed the checkride fyi despite the usual crappy crosswinds at LFAT… but more training for that specific type of failure would’ve been welcome.
Good luck!
pashab wrote:
…“down there” where the backup instruments are…
Yes, that’s difficult enough, but there still is an attitude indicator which makes things quite easy compared to flying without an attitude indicator. Maintaining aircraft attitude and course on turn coordinator, altimeter and magnetic compass is a lot more difficult. In my experience, it must be trained and re-trained in order to produce survivable results. In our FTO, we train limited panel flying on the FNPT during the last 5 hours of the (typical, depending on the training scheme) 35 hours on this device. For most students, the first training session without attitude indicator is more difficult than the first session of flying on instruments alone. We also train this in the aircraft (using covers for the AI and HSI/DI) but usually the student gets sufficient other clues about the aircraft attitude (e.g. peripherial vision) to make the exercise almost worthless. And flying an instrument approach down to minimum in real IMC with the AI covererd is beyond what I am going to provide for a flying instructor’s hourly pay… Therefore the FNPT is really useful.
At my flight school we have these cutouts from laminated paper that you attach to the screen. It covers the instruments that are affected by the failure that is written on the backside of it. Quite handy I must say.
Rwy20 wrote:
I didn’t learn to fly on classical instruments, but now may have to do it. What would be your approach to partial panel work? How confident are those who learned on classical instruments to fly only with a turn coordinator, magnetic compass, vertical speed and altimeter (no gyro scenario)?
Slight topic drift, but how you feel about this is probably the reason that EASA now require differences training if someone who has only flown with EFIS now wants to fly a steam-gauge cockpit, correct?
In your case I assume your class ratings would have been granted before all this came in, so you’d just need to make sure you are competent before you go fly. I would probably lookup some theory about instrument scanning techniques, and systems knowledge. If you have access to FNTP great, but with FSX you should get a little underway already.
