Single Pilot 135 IFR: Are GPS & autopilot standard?

gomntwins said:
Yeah, studying charts ahead of time is good. The bad: when you have ATC call you and say 'your company has a re-route for you, advise ready to copy. Then, if I have time, I try to look through the airport diagram. I do make it work, but it still sucks. I still really think NOS needs to work on their airport diagrams. One time when I was at a major class B I said my NOS charts didn't depict a certain taxiway. The controller got pissed and told me I needed to have jepp plates to land there. I asked for a progressive, it all worked out. But still, I think NOS should work on their airport diagrams.
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I didn't say it wasn't painful, just doable. :) Jepp plates to be able to land at a certain airport? Haha....thats the first I've heard of that! Funny thing is, I'm just the opposite: I think Jepp airport diagrams suck, and the NOS ones are good.......but then again, I've been using them my whole career.
 
MikeD said:
I didn't say it wasn't painful, just doable. :) Jepp plates to be able to land at a certain airport? Haha....thats the first I've heard of that! Funny thing is, I'm just the opposite: I think Jepp airport diagrams suck, and the NOS ones are good.......but then again, I've been using them my whole career.
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I'm kindof the same way. I used Jepps for about a year as a CFI because that's what my employer wanted to me teach. I learned on NOS though so I've always felt more at home with them. I really like that you don't have to go through all the Jepp revisions. What a pain in the butt. Just throw the old NOS books away when you get the new ones! Easy. But, at the same time, if an employer offers me Jepps I'll use them. As long as I don't have to buy the plates I'll use whatever's provided!
 
I want to see the first G1000 equipped Caravan freighter. Talk about overkill.

Cessna no longer makes the 208 with guages, so eventually it will come.
 
gomntwins said:
The bad: when you have ATC call you and say 'your company has a re-route for you, advise ready to copy.
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The Ugly: When ATC assigns a STAR for the first time in, well, forever. Same route, same clearance ever since, I'm guessing, the run began back in the stone age. Then blammo "join the whassacallit arrival."

Nice long pause then "You want me to do WHAT?"

We're sorta /G but not really. Enroute and Terminal only, no GPS approaches. And half the airplanes are technically /A or /U because of some oddball annunciator installations so for legality's sake it's grab a heading and direct when able.

No autopilot, no GPS? Who cares? I get to go to work in shorts and I shave whenever I feel like it.
 
Turbine said:
Not all will have either..but most will have an autpilot as a requirement for a single pilot operation. Ive seen many ops with a GPS, but again some do not..i guess if you fly the same route all the time it isnt to big an issue.

Not really something i agree with though. If we want to increase safety, having a working autopilot and some type of GPS will do wonders to lower the workload in the cockpit, especially in a single pilot environment.

Turbine
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:yup:

I couldn't agree more!

Thanks to all for the replies. I now see that it really just depends but don't be surprised if it's an old school cockpit.

Below is a link to a couple approaches out of Salmon Idaho. You can see that GPS is more than a convenience.

IAPs - Instrument Approach ProceduresRNAV (GPS)-C download [SIZE=-1](953KB)[/SIZE]VOR/DME-B download [SIZE=-1](967KB)[/SIZE]

I asked a crusty old exmainer at the FSDO "Isn't taking an instrument checkride in a G1000 cheating?" thinking for sure he would agree with me. Actually, what he said was that he felt the pilots that truly knew how to operate their GPS system had much better situational awareness, made better decisions, and were safer.
 
SurfandSun said:
:yup:

I couldn't agree more!

Thanks to all for the replies. I now see that it really just depends but don't be surprised if it's an old school cockpit.



I asked a crusty old exmainer at the FSDO "Isn't taking an instrument checkride in a G1000 cheating?" thinking for sure he would agree with me. Actually, what he said was that he felt the pilots that truly knew how to operate their GPS system had much better situational awareness, made better decisions, and were safer.
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You'll find a lot of crusty old examiners that would feel the opposite. It's all in who you talk with. Personally, I think that technology has it's place in the cockpit, but good old fashioned airmanship does as well. My fear for a lot of the newer pilots is relying on the new technology and giving up on stuff like charts. I know situational awareness is better with a gps when you can literally scroll it down and say "I'm flying over the corner of 6th. Ave. and Elm Street" in whatever town. But, when the screen goes blank can they pull out a chart and find which town they're over? A lot of pilot's can't. It used to be you had to. I know of instrument rated pilots who can't track a VOR. Kindof scary. Also, I flew with a guy awhile back that I don't think looked out the window beyond 500 feet AGL... the rest of the time he was paging through God knows what in his GPS. And, I did a stage check (the student did not pass) at an old flight school I worked at and the pilot scrolled the GPS down and flew his traffic pattern with the stupid thing.

All this does is make me sound against technology. I'm not. Granted, I don't have much experience with the fancy avionics of today, but I do realize that it can help pilots, provided they don't abuse it. Nor does it mean that all pilot's flying steam gauges look outside enough, I know a few who don't. My point: just because the fancy G1000's are becoming more commonplace is cockpits does not make a couple of VOR's, and ADF, and a glideslope unsafe. Delta still fly's the old DC9's with the configuration across the U.S. daily, and I believe Southwest airlines still has a few, as do many other airlines. It's common in freight. As the new airplanes get older glass cockpits will become more commonplace in freighters. But, there will likely be steam gauges flying for decades to come regardless, and they will be flown daily, and it will be done safely as it has been for decades.
 
gomntwins said:
You'll find a lot of crusty old examiners that would feel the opposite. It's all in who you talk with. Personally, I think that technology has it's place in the cockpit, but good old fashioned airmanship does as well. My fear for a lot of the newer pilots is relying on the new technology and giving up on stuff like charts. I know situational awareness is better with a gps when you can literally scroll it down and say "I'm flying over the corner of 6th. Ave. and Elm Street" in whatever town. But, when the screen goes blank can they pull out a chart and find which town they're over? A lot of pilot's can't. It used to be you had to. I know of instrument rated pilots who can't track a VOR. Kindof scary. Also, I flew with a guy awhile back that I don't think looked out the window beyond 500 feet AGL... the rest of the time he was paging through God knows what in his GPS. And, I did a stage check (the student did not pass) at an old flight school I worked at and the pilot scrolled the GPS down and flew his traffic pattern with the stupid thing.

All this does is make me sound against technology. I'm not. Granted, I don't have much experience with the fancy avionics of today, but I do realize that it can help pilots, provided they don't abuse it. Nor does it mean that all pilot's flying steam gauges look outside enough, I know a few who don't. My point: just because the fancy G1000's are becoming more commonplace is cockpits does not make a couple of VOR's, and ADF, and a glideslope unsafe. Delta still fly's the old DC9's with the configuration across the U.S. daily, and I believe Southwest airlines still has a few, as do many other airlines. It's common in freight. As the new airplanes get older glass cockpits will become more commonplace in freighters. But, there will likely be steam gauges flying for decades to come regardless, and they will be flown daily, and it will be done safely as it has been for decades.
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From the facebook fairchild metroliner page.



Maybe we can request that our companies get this upgrade.:)
 
KLB said:
From the facebook fairchild metroliner page.



Maybe we can request that our companies get this upgrade.:)
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Wow, it's amazing how much that cleans up the cockpit! I'm not sure about your company, but mine sure as hell won't go for that one! I really wouldn't mind getting into a cockpit like that though. At the same time, I really don't mind steam!
 
woutlaw said:
The Ugly: When ATC assigns a STAR for the first time in, well, forever. Same route, same clearance ever since, I'm guessing, the run began back in the stone age. Then blammo "join the whassacallit arrival."

Nice long pause then "You want me to do WHAT?" .....

No autopilot, no GPS? Who cares? I get to go to work in shorts and I shave whenever I feel like it.
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:clap::yeahthat:

I totally second that. I got to work, no one cares if I show up in shorts and a t-shirt or otherwise. I know people who used to work here that used to fly in flip flops. While I cannot bring myself to do that, there is no uniform. It's nice, at O dark thirty I can just reach in the closet grab whatever.
 
At Ram Air Freight all of our airplanes have GPS. Some of them have working autopilots, but most do not. None of them have weather radar. An autopilot is nice but I can live without it. What I really wish we had was weather radar. Summertime in the Carolinas can get very nasty with all the thunderstorms around.
 
I'd love to comment, but I'm sure someone will turn this thread into another poo-slinging debate about Key Lime. :(
 
As someone said above, typically piston operators will have no autopilot or radar. Most turbine operators will have radar (bonus points if it works), some will have an autopilot, some won't. In my experience, you're more likely to get an A/P if you do on-demand. Me? I'll take the A/P. Radar and GPS are nice, but being able to take your eyes off the altimeter on hour 6 of a week of 6 hour legs is priceless. Course my complaints would be less angry if Beech had found it in their cold, cold hearts to put a freaking trim wheel on the 99.
 
Boris Badenov said:
As someone said above, typically piston operators will have no autopilot or radar. Most turbine operators will have radar (bonus points if it works), some will have an autopilot, some won't. In my experience, you're more likely to get an A/P if you do on-demand. Me? I'll take the A/P. Radar and GPS are nice, but being able to take your eyes off the altimeter on hour 6 of a week of 6 hour legs is priceless. Course my complaints would be less angry if Beech had found it in their cold, cold hearts to put a freaking trim wheel on the 99.
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Agreed. However, I love me a good radar in these Texas summers. I'll go regardless, but it sure makes life easier.

It is kind of funny how comfort levels differ from one person to another based on the equipment in their airplane. You should know though that if you don't have GPS... you're dangerous!!!:D
 
JayAre said:
Amen brother!
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My hatred of that airplane cannot be expressed in mere text. Think of a KingAir (bad enough), and strip everything good and decent from it, and you have a 99. I might be more pleasantly inclined if I hadn't come out of the Sainted Mitsi, but honestly, what a pile of crap. And this was flying for what is by all accounts a Good Company that is Serious About Maintenance. They tried so hard, but you can only put so much lipstick on a pig...

2BEER said:
Agreed. However, I love me a good radar in these Texas summers. I'll go regardless, but it sure makes life easier.

It is kind of funny how comfort levels differ from one person to another based on the equipment in their airplane. You should know though that if you don't have GPS... you're dangerous!!!:D
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You're just an accident waiting to happen...ask any Riddle grad. And yes, I'll take all the junk they want to put on the airplane, and be grateful for it. Provided the airplane itself isn't junk. See above.
 
Know any rich guys who are man enough to buy a Marquise and then pay me to fly it? Which is more dangerous?? Whereever well go, be it a crash site or Lubbock well get there in style though.
 
Boris Badenov said:
Course my complaints would be less angry if Beech had found it in their cold, cold hearts to put a freaking trim wheel on the 99.
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Couldn't agree more. Having had 3 separate trim failures in the plane, mechanical backup would be nice.



CAP is flying 182s with g1000 in it now.
 
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