G1000 fuel gauges

[TangoWhiskey]

Just thought of something funny about the G1000 (and I'm not ragging on the system--I like it!). Fuel gauges are required equipment, right?

But if you press Engine - System on the MFD to get to the detailed numbers, the fuel gauges go away. The system will stay on this page indefinitely if you don't cancel out and return to the main page.

Therefore, you could theoretically fly for hours on end without seeing any gauges in the aircraft. In a way, I'm surprised the FAA allowed that to be certified. A timeout (60 seconds?) on the Engine/System page to return to the primary MFD screen if no key was pressed would solve that.

At least you'd get a low fuel alert on the PFD before you ran out of gas.

 

[tonycondon]

hypothetical: would more or less people run out of gas in an airplane without a fuel gauge? you would still have an idea of how much you had but you wouldnt have a gauge lying to you telling you you had more...

 

[Nav8tor]

Well you still have fuel gauges on board, you just have to bring them up on the MFD when you want to look at them. Even conventional gauges don't do you any good if you don't look at them. IMO its no different either way the information is available but its up to the pilot to seek it out and process it.

 

[gprellwitz]

And as you pointed out, it would alert you if it got low, which is more than can be said for many of the "conventional" gauges. On the diamonstar DA-40, that alert comes when either of the tanks gets to 1-3 gallons. Meaning the other tank must have at least 2-4 gallons, so you have to have at least 3 gallons total, or about 20 minutes. If you believe the gauges!

 

[HPNPilot1200]

But if you press Engine - System on the MFD to get to the detailed numbers, the fuel gauges go away. The system will stay on this page indefinitely if you don't cancel out and return to the main page.

Hrmm, that's strange. I just tried to above action in the G1000 Training software and it still displays the fuel guages on the Engine-->System page.

Jason