jspilot
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jspilot
Yesterday I went for a flight in a glass cockpit G1000 c182. It was the first time I've ever flown a 182 and the first time I've ever flown a G1000 equipped airplane. A couple of things occurred to me.
First, the G1000 is an amazing piece of avionics. This particular plane was equipped with XM weather and had a traffic alert system. I'm use to the old school see and avoid method when it comes to traffic avoidance and with the on board traffic, it really felt almost like cheating. The traffic feature does wonders for situational awareness ad sporting other aircraft was much easier do to the fact that it told me the relative position and altitude of the traffic. Truly an amazing addition to the cockpit. The other thing that struck me was the glass cockpit made my errors seem more "huge". There is just something about the number of altitude or speed being an exact number that made me notice my 50 foot altitude deviations or 10 knot speed differences. As a result I found myself looking at the instruments way more than I usually do. I kept wanting the altitude to be exact or the heading to be exactly on. For this reason I could see why I've read people cautioning new students from learning to fly on the glass cockpit. I now agree with that because learning on steam gauges makes you look outside more. I'm not sure why but I never had that same sensation to peg an altitude or heading precisely, I think because the steam gauge, while telling you you're 50 feet off altitude does not give you the same numerical value as the glass cockpit does. I found it harder to ignore errors in the glass cockpit which may in fact be a good thing, but I know if I had learned in the glass cockpit I would have felt like a much bigger failure. Might just be me...
The 182 was a great airplane to fly. I did notice the horsepower difference but the flying was very comparable to the 172 I'm use to flying. Two big differneces I noticed were the amount of control inputs required were much heavier on the 182 and landing differences. The 182 I flew had electric trim which was new to me and a blessing. I felt like the elevator was "heavy" and required way more back pressure than the 172. The instructor I flew with said that may be a result of the newer airplane feel- the 172's I fly from the same place are well used 12 year old planes as opposed to the 182 which is a brand new plane to the school and lightly used before that. However, I really needed to use trim and apply real control inputs throughout the flight. Landing was also similar in that I really had to pull back to keep the nose from dropping. Once I cut power, man did that nose drop! My instructor said that the heavy nose on the 182 makes the drop much greater than the 172. I can totally attest to that being a fact. Honestly, the touchdown part of the landing felt almost the same but I did feel that the 182 landed a bit firmer( although might have been caused by my first time flying a High performance plane.)
All and all a great experience! I'm going to get my high performance endorsement out of this plane after a few more flights just so I can make use of the flight time. This plane is certainly a massive step up from the 172's I'm flying now in terms of technology and capability!
First, the G1000 is an amazing piece of avionics. This particular plane was equipped with XM weather and had a traffic alert system. I'm use to the old school see and avoid method when it comes to traffic avoidance and with the on board traffic, it really felt almost like cheating. The traffic feature does wonders for situational awareness ad sporting other aircraft was much easier do to the fact that it told me the relative position and altitude of the traffic. Truly an amazing addition to the cockpit. The other thing that struck me was the glass cockpit made my errors seem more "huge". There is just something about the number of altitude or speed being an exact number that made me notice my 50 foot altitude deviations or 10 knot speed differences. As a result I found myself looking at the instruments way more than I usually do. I kept wanting the altitude to be exact or the heading to be exactly on. For this reason I could see why I've read people cautioning new students from learning to fly on the glass cockpit. I now agree with that because learning on steam gauges makes you look outside more. I'm not sure why but I never had that same sensation to peg an altitude or heading precisely, I think because the steam gauge, while telling you you're 50 feet off altitude does not give you the same numerical value as the glass cockpit does. I found it harder to ignore errors in the glass cockpit which may in fact be a good thing, but I know if I had learned in the glass cockpit I would have felt like a much bigger failure. Might just be me...
The 182 was a great airplane to fly. I did notice the horsepower difference but the flying was very comparable to the 172 I'm use to flying. Two big differneces I noticed were the amount of control inputs required were much heavier on the 182 and landing differences. The 182 I flew had electric trim which was new to me and a blessing. I felt like the elevator was "heavy" and required way more back pressure than the 172. The instructor I flew with said that may be a result of the newer airplane feel- the 172's I fly from the same place are well used 12 year old planes as opposed to the 182 which is a brand new plane to the school and lightly used before that. However, I really needed to use trim and apply real control inputs throughout the flight. Landing was also similar in that I really had to pull back to keep the nose from dropping. Once I cut power, man did that nose drop! My instructor said that the heavy nose on the 182 makes the drop much greater than the 172. I can totally attest to that being a fact. Honestly, the touchdown part of the landing felt almost the same but I did feel that the 182 landed a bit firmer( although might have been caused by my first time flying a High performance plane.)
All and all a great experience! I'm going to get my high performance endorsement out of this plane after a few more flights just so I can make use of the flight time. This plane is certainly a massive step up from the 172's I'm flying now in terms of technology and capability!
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