Training with G1000s

Jdehawk

Well-Known Member
So I'm new to the glass cockpit scene. I've been getting a few hours on them and am getting to the point where I don't know that I'm going to want to go back! One of the things I'm wondering is what some of the training procedures are for training IFR students for emergency situations. I'm used to keeping it to lost comms & partial panel scenarios for the main emergency topics in the old school planes. How do I train students effectively in glass cockpit planes to prepare them for failures of the equipment? Any good tips? Any good reading resources? Thanks!
 
Do you have access to an FTD with the G1000?
Good failures for IFR:
GDU
AHRS
Are you flying 172s? If so, the ADC and AHRS are the same circuit breaker, so typically you practice a double failure.
 
Are there any issues pulling the CB inflight then re-engaging it?

While Cessna advises against it. That's from the factory. Like Roger said, I have never had a problem with it. Just know what you are doing when you pull the circuit breaker and things go wrong. I worked under a Class B so I had to go outside of the Mode C ring before I could pull the breaker, but it worked. Then the students actually go to see an emergency.

I don't know about them but I hear the G1000 covers from Sporty's don't work to well.
 
Just be careful with it. I won't pull the AHRS breaker if we are or are planning to be in actual.
Edit:
I echo what braunpilot said-know what you're doing.
For example: pulling a GDU CB kills the associated nav/com, so make sure you're ready if the student doesn't set the live com back to ATC.
Also, an ADC failure may kill your mode C readout (at least it did one time in the DA42).
 
I printed the instructor/examiner pdf straight off of garmins website and pulled all kind of breakers in the DA40. The PFD, MFD, ADC, and AHRS...I figure if Garmin publishes it, it can't hurt.
 
The reason Garmin and Cessna advise against pulling breakers to simulate failures is because repeatedly engaging/disengaging the breaker physically wears it out. They're a relatively fragile component engineered to protect wiring, not act as switches.

If they wear out, I can't remember exactly what will happen. They either won't pop when overloaded (could lead to an electrical fire) or will break the connection even if not overloaded (could be bad if flying in IMC). Either way, bad things happen.

Bottom line is you should not use the breakers as a means of intentionally failing anything. There's a reason the manufacturer advises against this practice.

As has been mentioned, having an AHRS/ADC failure is one situation to train over. In this case, all attitude/heading/pitot/static indications are lost. The proper way to simulate this failure is by using some form of screen cover cut out to only block the areas of the PFD that would be Xed out in the event of an AHRS/ADC failure.

However, having an AHRS/ADC failure isn't a huge deal from a pilot's perspective. Just look to the standby instruments in the center of the panel and keep truckin'.

The other major failure that needs to be addressed is a PFD or PFD backlighting failure. The way to simulate this is by turning the screen brightness on the PFD down to 0% ("Menu" button on the PFD -> PFD brightness into "manual" mode -> Brightness = 0%).

The response from the pilot is to put the system in to reversionary mode by pressing the big red button at the bottom of the audio panel and fly using the MFD.

Once the system is in reversionary mode, you can bring the PFD back to life by pressing the "Menu" button on the MFD and putting the PFD back on "Auto" brightness.

Incidentally, if you're flying a Cessna with a GFC700 autopilot, if the PFD fails (truly fails, not just a backlighting failure), the autopilot will not work because it gets its input from the PFD. So the most realistic training scenarios for PFD failures should include the pilot hand flying as soon as it fails. On Cessnas with the older KAP140 autopilot, the autopilot will still work even if the PFD is offline.

That's pretty much the only emergency situations that are critical for flying a G1000. It's an amazing system that has very benign failure modes.

I've heard Max Trescott has put out a good G1000 training handbook, although I've never personally used it. King Schools has also done a "Cleared for Flying the Garmin G1000" training course that includes several hours of video. I have used the King Schools course and been fairly impressed by it.



Finally, I have to rant for a minute. This has absolutely no bearing on the original poster, it's just that this thread made reminded me of a pet peeve. Way too many CFIs are out there trying to teach glass cockpits without adequately understanding the system themselves. It's not their fault, it's the fault of all the flight schools that hire instructors with no glass time, then throw them in a G1000 aircraft and say, "Figure it out!" It sets up tons of "blind leading the blind" situations that aren't good for the CFI or the customer.

If all a person wants to do is hold heading and altitude, it takes about 10 minutes to figure out a G1000. A person can teach themself how to do this fine. The problem with that approach is that all you're doing is replacing conventional instruments with digital readouts. You're not fundamentally changing the way you fly and taking advantage of what a glass cockpit does best--present extra information that improves situational awareness and helps the pilot make better decisions. You're taking a $30k upgrade and not getting anything worthwhile out of it.

I'm not one of those people who want to initiate a "glass cockpit endorsement" along the same lines as a tailwheel or high performance endorsement, but this area the flight training industry really needs to self regulate better.
 
I printed the instructor/examiner pdf straight off of garmins website and pulled all kind of breakers in the DA40. The PFD, MFD, ADC, and AHRS...I figure if Garmin publishes it, it can't hurt.

Oops, I see what you're talking about now.

But if you look at the next page, page 19, it talks about not pulling breakers in Cessnas.
 
Bottom line is you should not use the breakers as a means of intentionally failing anything. There's a reason the manufacturer advises against this practice.
To a point, yes. However, I do advocate actually pulling the breakers once in a while. Why?

I tried pulling the AHRS/ADC breaker one time on a student. Our school teaches that the the track arrow on the MFD should be used to help with heading changes during the AHRS failure. Of course holding of heading is primarily done by holding wings level on the standby AI.

To my great surprise, after about 2 minutes of flying with the breaker pulled, the track vector froze. Naturally the aircraft continued to move properly on the moving map, but the track vector was just blatantly wrong.

This particular failure mode is not simulated properly in the simulator. Now, when I put the panel cover up for an AHRS/ADC failure, I turn off the track vector. But I think this is something that the student needs to see and be ready for.

I'm not sure if this has any bearing on the pulling CBs argument, but we used to have 30+ year old Duchesses. Our instructors pulled breakers on those all the time to simulate gear failures, alternator failures, fail engine gauges on the takeoff roll, etc. We didn't have any problem with those ancient things wearing out, so I'm not sure I buy that argument. If you've run into it (perhaps the breakers on new Cessnas aren't as bulletproof as the old Beech ones?), I'd be really interested to know about it.
 
To a point, yes. However, I do advocate actually pulling the breakers once in a while. Why?

I tried pulling the AHRS/ADC breaker one time on a student. Our school teaches that the the track arrow on the MFD should be used to help with heading changes during the AHRS failure. Of course holding of heading is primarily done by holding wings level on the standby AI.

To my great surprise, after about 2 minutes of flying with the breaker pulled, the track vector froze. Naturally the aircraft continued to move properly on the moving map, but the track vector was just blatantly wrong.

This particular failure mode is not simulated properly in the simulator. Now, when I put the panel cover up for an AHRS/ADC failure, I turn off the track vector. But I think this is something that the student needs to see and be ready for.

I'm not sure if this has any bearing on the pulling CBs argument, but we used to have 30+ year old Duchesses. Our instructors pulled breakers on those all the time to simulate gear failures, alternator failures, fail engine gauges on the takeoff roll, etc. We didn't have any problem with those ancient things wearing out, so I'm not sure I buy that argument. If you've run into it (perhaps the breakers on new Cessnas aren't as bulletproof as the old Beech ones?), I'd be really interested to know about it.

I see your point with all the things you mentioned. Occasionally pulling a breaker is no big deal.

However, the Garmin/Cessna/FAA guidance on this is very clear. Pulling breakers is not the ideal, preferred method of training for failures. It should not be the standard operating practice.

I'm just doing what the book says. If Cessna starts signing my pay checks and gives me the title of "Test Pilot" I'll be more interested in getting creative with how I treat the system.
 
The reason for not pulling the breaker is stated previously about the actual breaker wearing out. However, another CFI and I talked to a mechanic of a DC-9 about it and he said that they have actual checklists that actually state to pull the breaker on the preflight check (military DC-9). So when they were out they replace them, they are very easy to replace according to the mechanic. So FWIW, I will fail the instrumentation once for the student so that they actually see it. That way they actually get to see the failure.
 
BTW, we do use custom-made covers for most of our failures. Like I said, I do the real failure once or twice in the airplane to each student.
 
Finally, I have to rant for a minute. This has absolutely no bearing on the original poster, it's just that this thread made reminded me of a pet peeve. Way too many CFIs are out there trying to teach glass cockpits without adequately understanding the system themselves. It's not their fault, it's the fault of all the flight schools that hire instructors with no glass time, then throw them in a G1000 aircraft and say, "Figure it out!" It sets up tons of "blind leading the blind" situations that aren't good for the CFI or the customer.

If all a person wants to do is hold heading and altitude, it takes about 10 minutes to figure out a G1000. A person can teach themself how to do this fine. The problem with that approach is that all you're doing is replacing conventional instruments with digital readouts. You're not fundamentally changing the way you fly and taking advantage of what a glass cockpit does best--present extra information that improves situational awareness and helps the pilot make better decisions. You're taking a $30k upgrade and not getting anything worthwhile out of it.

I'm not actually teaching anyone out of a glass cockpit yet. I am however saving myself $230 p/h to ask you wise CFII's for some input for free. Is this still blind leading the blind?
 
I'm not actually teaching anyone out of a glass cockpit yet. I am however saving myself $230 p/h to ask you wise CFII's for some input for free. Is this still blind leading the blind?

The fact that you took the time to ask a question and listen to the responses says good things about your attitude and desire to do the best job possible.

However, there is no substitute for good quality one on one training in person.

When I got hired at my current school, I was provided the King Schools Cleared for Flying the G1000 computerized training course (about 6 hours worth of videos), plus flew one hour in the actual aircraft with an instructor already familiar with the system (paid for by the school, not me).

It was much better of a checkout than a lot of places give, but still less than ideal. I taught in the G1000 for a couple hundred hours and thought I had a pretty good handle on the system. Then I had the opportunity to take Cessna's three day long factory training course over the G1000.

The factory training blew me away. It showed me a significant shift in mindset. Before, I had looked at the system as a couple boxes with a bunch of cool features. The factory training really drilled how to apply the tools for safer operations in the real world. It's a "package deal" of situational awareness, workload management, improved decision making, etc. I believe I can be a much more effective teacher because of the factory training.

This is why I say there are too many "blind leading the blind" situations out there. I'll be the first to admit I wasn't as good as I should have been when I first started teaching it, but the thing is, I didn't know any better. I didn't know how much I didn't know.

The problem is, factory training courses are expensive. Most flight schools don't have the budget to send their instructors to three days of avionics training for relatively little return. And I certainly don't expect the instructor to pay for it, unless they're an independent CFI maybe.

It's a tough situation all the way around and I don't know what should be done about it. However, I think this lack of experienced glass panel instructors explains a lot of the popular misconceptions about glass panels (they're distracting, they're a crutch to student pilots, etc.). If the instructor doesn't have a really thorough understanding of glass panel operations themselves, how are they supposed to teach it?

It's not something that can be picked up through a few messages on an internet forum. Hopefully as glass panel operations become more common and more instructors coming up through the ranks get glass panel experience earlier in their training, these problems will naturally fade away.
 
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