Do advanced avionics like the Garmin 1000 and Avidyne Entegra make better pilots? Good question. Tough answer.

In fact, there are probably two answers: a short one and a long one. The short answer is no. The long answer is maybe yes; but it all depends on the type of pilot you have for customers and the training they get with these new systems. Confused? Join the club.
“Professional pilots who are employed for companies that have training facilities or can contract training have it far better than the private pilot/owner that has been saving up for the newest upgrades,” Neill Fulbright, associate program coordinator, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said. “I have seen some aircraft owners who have purchased the newest GPS instrumentation and not know how to back out of the menu selections they have made.”
“Out the door forever is the concept of ‘let’s hop in and take her around the patch’ type of checkout,” explained Mike Gaffney, president of flight training, Skyline Aeronautics. “We had seen enough evidence of how this didn’t work when we were teaching the Garmin 430 and Bendix KLN94 equipped panels. The pilots who tried to do it by the seat of their pants started punching buttons trying to get to the screen they wanted and they should have already been there.”
So partly out of frustration and partly out of sheer laziness, the standard operating procedure for most pilots was to push “Direct To and Enter.” So you have who-knows-how-many pilots jumping in their tricked-out airplanes who only know how to push literally two buttons. The good news is you’ll probably soon be doing a lot of button replacement work.
The bad news is this “Direct To” style of flight planning isn’t really planning at all. “Unless the pilot really knows how to program their flight plan, this type of ‘planning’ will just drive you right through hot MOAs, Restricted Airspace areas and Class B airspace,” Gaffney added. “We’re trying to start by showing pilots how this software really works—how to integrate the autopilot and navigation system together and then the pilot monitors the system to make sure it is doing what he wants it to do.”

Do bigger screens equal bigger problems?
If pilots continue to have issues with the commodity avionics like the Garmin 430 and 530, what’s in store for people who have flocked to the hot new glass cockpits from Garmin and Avidyne? Will these new big screen systems really create better, more capable pilots or will these new panels be more ‘eye candy?’
“The advanced avionics allow the pilot to focus his attention into the various departments necessary to safely fly the airplane,” Gaffney said. “But they can also become a distraction if you allow it. Pilots who are properly trained and follow the procedures become cockpit managers and they can use the information presented on the large displays to fly a very precise mission with much tighter control over the operational scenario of the airplane.
“Pilots who do not get training—just slide into the cockpit and fly the way they used to—will find themselves staring at the screens like a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons,” he continued. “They just don’t want to look outside the airplane any more.”
In what can best be described as a “highway-in-the-sky hypnosis” scenario, pilots, especially those new to the glass cockpit environment, come to quickly depend on those two large, full-color screens to give them all the information they need. They literally become mesmerized by all the information and are reluctant to look away from the displays simply because there’s a chance they may miss something important.
A case illustrated by Eric Radtke, president of Sporty’s Academy, who shared the story of the first student they took from zero-time through the private pilot’s certificate in the G1000 equipped airplane. “It took about 40 percent longer than what it would have taken in another airplane,” he said. “There was one key issue that continued throughout this individual’s training and that was he did not want to look away from the glass in front of him. Getting him to fly outside of the airplane was the issue.
“There is just a lot of information on these displays and they want to stare at all of it all the time,” Radtke continued. “It’s easy to forget about what they need to concentrate on outside the airplane.” In fact, these advanced avionics systems really make it easier for pilots to concentrate on flying the airplane instead of monitoring a bunch of different dials and gauges like they had to do in the “old days.”
“One of the best advancements has been in the area of systems monitoring and display,” Fulbright stated. “The pilots with these avionics don’t have to monitor systems that are functioning within their normal ranges, they can be presented with information on a need to know basis such as in the event of a parameter exceedence.”
What this basically means to the pilot is that there are still a lot of possible distractions, but he will only have one area to focus on to find the information he needs to make a decision. “That’s why it takes more effort on the part of the pilot to understand and be totally familiar with these new displays,” Gaffney stressed. “Take the ‘Declutter Mode’ on the G1000 for example: You need to understand it extremely well before you start the engine. If you don’t know what it does or really know how and when to use it, it’s not going to do you any good.
“And going one step beyond that,” he continued, “if the system is showing you something and you don’t understand how it functions, you end up sitting there not knowing what to do about it. Not knowing if it is a real emergency or just a software anomaly and how to clear it off the screen.”

Know when to hold ’em. Know when to fold ’em.
As Gaffney stated earlier, you can’t just kick the tires and light the fires with these new avionics systems. “We are coming from an environment where we had simple airplanes where everyone looked the same, and even if it wasn’t, so what? You could figure it out on the fly,” he said. “You cannot do that with these technically advanced airplanes. But pilots are trying. They are goofing around with switches and knobs and trying to figure things out while the airplane is in motion—on the ground or in the air. That worries both the FAA and the insurance companies.”
Skyline Aeronautics has graduated over 80 students flying G1000 equipped airplanes and in that time they’ve learned a thing or two about what it takes to safely and efficiently train and transition pilots. Gaffney explained that the key thing is to make the pilots spend the time to get familiar with the avionics and displays before you hand them the keys to fly. “Then you enforce the use of checklists and you do all the programming of the GPS and NAV units BEFORE you start the engine,” he continued. “Then you’ve taken away the temptation to try and do these tasks while the airplane is taxiing—a very dangerous time to have your head buried in the cockpit fiddling with knobs.”
Radtke said that the folks at Sporty’s Academy have taken that cockpit familiarization process a step further. Before a pilot can begin the checkout procedure in the school’s G1000 equipped Skylane, they first have to watch a copy of Sporty’s G1000 familiarization DVD and review a copy of the G1000 Cockpit Reference Guide. And if you’re looking for evidence that these new avionics systems are seriously loaded with stuff, the “Cockpit Reference Guide” is 96 pages long with lots of pictures.
He also said that another valuable step in the checkout process is to have the pilot spend time in the airplane on the ground. “We have a dedicated ground power unit for our glass cockpit airplane,” he explained. “What our students do is before they ever fly the airplane, they sit in the cockpit with everything powered up and they go over everything in detail with their instructor. They push buttons, set up the autopilot, enter flight plans, do whatever they want as much as they want—it’s our simulator of sorts.
“I believe these advanced avionics systems can truly make, maybe not better pilots, but much more aware pilots,” Radtke said. “It’s knowing where the airplane is in relation to everything around you including navigational aids, airports, other airplanes and being able to stay one-step ahead of the airplane is the culmination of all these elements to show you where the airplane is going to be in ‘X’ amount of time. Now instead of trying to visualize where you will be in the near-future, these glass displays will give you a visual picture.“

The answer is...
So, do advanced avionics make better pilots? They can and probably will. But only if the pilots who are fortunate enough to fly with them will take the time to really get to understand how these amazing new tools work. Like anything new, it takes time and dedication on the part of the pilot to make operating these systems second nature.
As ERAU’s Fulbright summed it up, “Training and recurrent training are fundamental in giving our pilots the best environment in which to work. The latest and greatest avionics are worthless if pilots are intimidated or unfamiliar with their use.”