Heard a pilot say his new plane's glass cockpit was 'just like a video game'

I was grabbing coffee at the FBO in Daytona last Tuesday and overheard a guy talking about his new Cirrus. He said flying it felt like playing a video game because of the big screens. It made me think about how we explain these systems to pilots who didn't grow up with steam gauges. Do you ever get that kind of comment, and how do you handle it when they don't take the systems seriously?

3 comments

3 Comments

spencerperez1mo ago

Totally hear that all the time (and it's a bit worrying). Had a student last week call the G1000 a "big iPad," which misses the point of it being serious gear. You really have to stress that the automation is a tool, not a game cheat code.

hannah_fox1mo ago

Wait, isn't the bigger issue that the student saw it as just a screen at all? Calling it a "big iPad" makes it seem like a toy you can just tap out of trouble. Like what @nina_harris39 said, the gear follows orders, so if you tell it to fly into bad weather, it will. My friend who flies said his instructor made him hand-fly in rough air on purpose, just to feel what the plane does before the automation tries to smooth it out. That stuff matters when the screen goes dark and you have to actually fly.

nina_harris391mo ago

My instructor friend had a student try to use the autopilot to fly through a thunderstorm because it was "just like the computer doing it." That mindset @spencerperez mentioned is scary when real weather hits. The gear doesn't make decisions, it just follows orders, good or bad.