NTSB says glass no safer than steam

[jnmeade]

************************************************************
NTSB PRESS RELEASE
************************************************************

National Transportation Safety Board
Washington, DC 20594

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 9, 2010
SB-10-07

************************************************************

NTSB STUDY SHOWS INTRODUCTION OF 'GLASS COCKPITS' IN GENERAL
AVIATION AIRPLANES HAS NOT LED TO EXPECTED SAFETY
IMPROVEMENTS

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Washington, DC -- Today the National Transportation Safety
Board adopted a study concluding that single engine
airplanes equipped with glass cockpits had no better overall
safety record than airplanes with conventional
instrumentation.

The safety study, which was adopted unanimously by the
Safety Board, was initiated more than a year ago to
determine if light airplanes equipped with digital primary
flight displays, often referred to as “glass cockpits,” were
inherently safer than those equipped with conventional
instruments.

The study, which looked at the accident rates of over 8,000
small piston-powered airplanes manufactured between 2002 and
2006, found that those equipped with glass cockpits had a
higher fatal accident rate then similar aircraft with
conventional instruments.

The Safety Board determined that because glass cockpits are
both complex and vary from aircraft to aircraft in function,
design and failure modes, pilots are not always provided
with all of the information they need -- both by aircraft
manufacturers and the Federal Aviation Administration -- to
adequately understand the unique operational and functional
details of the primary flight instruments in their
airplanes.

NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman highlighted the role that
training plays in preventing accidents involving these
airplanes.

"As we discussed today, training is clearly one of the key
components to reducing the accident rate of light planes
equipped with glass cockpits, and this study clearly
demonstrates the life and death importance of appropriate
training on these complex systems," said Hersman. "We know
that while many pilots have thousands of hours of experience
with conventional flight instruments, that alone is just not
enough to prepare them to safely operate airplanes equipped
with these glass cockpit features."

Today, nearly all newly manufactured piston-powered light
airplanes are equipped with digital primary flight displays.
And the number of older airplanes being retrofitted with
these systems continues to grow.

"While the technological innovations and flight management
tools that glass cockpit equipped airplanes bring to the
general aviation community should reduce the number of fatal
accidents, we have not -- unfortunately -- seen that happen,"
said Hersman. "The data tell us that equipment-specific
training will save lives. To that end, we have adopted
recommendations today responsive to that data --
recommendations on pilot knowledge testing standards,
training, simulators, documentation and service difficulty
reporting so that the potential safety improvements that
these systems provide can be realized by the general
aviation pilot community."

Based on the study findings, the NTSB made six safety
recommendations to the FAA: 1) enhance pilot knowledge and
training requirements; 2) require manufacturers to provide
pilots with information to better manage system failures; 3)
incorporate training elements regarding electronic primary
flight displays into training materials and aeronautical
knowledge requirements; 4) incorporate training elements
regarding electronic primary flight displays into initial
and recurrent flight proficiency requirements for pilots of
small light general aviation airplanes equipped with those
systems, that address variations in equipment design and
operations of such displays; 5) support equipment-specific
pilot training programs by developing guidance for the use
of glass cockpit simulators other than those that are
approved by the FAA as flight training devices; and 6)
inform the general aviation community about the importance
of reporting malfunctions or defects with electronic flight,
navigation and control systems through the Service
Difficulty Reporting system.

The complete safety study will be available at www.ntsb.gov
in several weeks.

 

[wabower]

The insurance guys who attend NBAA tax conference (that includes financial and risk subjects) have said they are seeing a a definite reduction in accident rates in TAWS-equipped airplanes. Maybe the money is better spent there than in the fancy displays?

 

[Everskyward]

I'm curious if the increase in accidents is due to confusion about how to use the new technology. It's not clear from the press release that this is the case. To determine something like that there would need to be a comparison of types of accidents in both kinds of cockpits, not just a comparison of the total number of accidents. I wouldn't expect judgment accidents to decrease in airplanes with glass cockpits, for example.

 

[weilke]

Kind of hard to make those comparisons without looking at the types of aircraft and the types of flying done.

I bet you could create a result 'NTSB finds that engine with hp >300 leads to higher number of deadly accidents' with the same data.

Many of the non-glass aircraft sold in that timeframe where probably trainers which with their high percentage of taxi and low-speed accidents skew the data.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Kind of hard to make those comparisons without looking at the types of aircraft and the types of flying done.

Bingo. I was thinking that the data is probably skewed by the Cirrus' poor safety records, since probably half the glass-cockpit birds out there were made by Cirrus. In their case, I think the BRS tends to encourage poor decision-making, and the Avidyne system is both more prone to failures and harder to recover from those failures compared to other systems.

 

[B2Soar]

I believe there may be a problem with the eyes and attention being diverted too much for looking at and operating the fancy glass panel when they are needed for looking "out" and flying the aircraft.

 

[TMetzinger]

It's my understanding that fuel exhaustion is down in glass airplanes, but other accident causes are up.

But my read on this is that glass doesn't improve pilot judgement. I think it makes safe pilots safer (or gives smart involved pilots more/better information), but doesn't help, and in fact hurts pilots who don't get fully involved in the airplane and the systems.

 

[steingar]

Till you replace the knob behind the wheel ain't no airplane gong to be any safer.

 

[bsdunek]

Till you replace the knob behind the wheel ain't no airplane gong to be any safer.

Exactly! As they say in driving, the problem is the loose nut that holds the steering wheel.

 

[midlifeflyer]

Some folks have also suggested in articles that the increased information means an increase in risk-taking. The flip side of the knowledge that, for example, on-board weather gives you is that pilots might be more likely to fly into weather they would not otherwise fly into.

 

[maddog52]

It's my understanding that fuel exhaustion is down in glass airplanes, but other accident causes are up.

But my read on this is that glass doesn't improve pilot judgement. I think it makes safe pilots safer (or gives smart involved pilots more/better information), but doesn't help, and in fact hurts pilots who don't get fully involved in the airplane and the systems.

Well said!

 

[weilke]

I am looking forward to the final report and into how much detail it goes.

My take on this is that they are comparing:

Cirrus
T182T
Columbia
TBM
PC12
Malibu / Meridian

on one hand and

Husky
172 trainers
warrior trainers
early DA40
DA20

on the other.

 

[redcloud]

I am not surprised by the findings. Pilots, across varied experience levels, seem to underestimate the amount of training necessary to reach proficiency in TAA. In fact, higher time pilots seem to be the the most likely to feel that proficieny should be easier to accomplish with fewer training hours.

 

[EdFred]

Too much money + not enough skill = the NTSB findings.

 

[Ted]

Definitely think there's a consistency issue. When flying with Joe in his Cirrus on Sunday, he let me have the controls for a bit. I found myself continuing to look at the backup steam gauges for my reference, simply because the big shiny Avidyne was unfamiliar to me. The stuff that I wasn't already used to dealing with (primarily traffic) was great, but as far as basic flight is concerned, I was certainly at a disadvantage vs. steam gauges. My favorite setup is what my friend has in his Travel Air. Steam gauges, a 530W, an Avidyne MFD, and a KX155 and associated DME. Yep, that's the way I'd like to go.

I don't think the numbers by themselves mean much, though. You'd really need to look at aircraft that were once equipped with steam gauges and later given glass cockpits to make a valid comparison.

 

[AuntPeggy]

I'm curious if the increase in accidents is due to confusion about how to use the new technology. It's not clear from the press release that this is the case. To determine something like that there would need to be a comparison of types of accidents in both kinds of cockpits, not just a comparison of the total number of accidents. I wouldn't expect judgment accidents to decrease in airplanes with glass cockpits, for example.

Kind of hard to make those comparisons without looking at the types of aircraft and the types of flying done.

I bet you could create a result 'NTSB finds that engine with hp >300 leads to higher number of deadly accidents' with the same data.

Many of the non-glass aircraft sold in that timeframe where probably trainers which with their high percentage of taxi and low-speed accidents skew the data.

Interesting viewpoint from an observer... http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blog...2c7fPost:a656ec83-e655-4594-92b5-487c9f5f3557

 

[skidoo]

Definitely think there's a consistency issue. When flying with Joe in his Cirrus on Sunday, he let me have the controls for a bit. I found myself continuing to look at the backup steam gauges for my reference, simply because the big shiny Avidyne was unfamiliar to me. The stuff that I wasn't already used to dealing with (primarily traffic) was great, but as far as basic flight is concerned, I was certainly at a disadvantage vs. steam gauges. My favorite setup is what my friend has in his Travel Air. Steam gauges, a 530W, an Avidyne MFD, and a KX155 and associated DME. Yep, that's the way I'd like to go.

I don't think the numbers by themselves mean much, though. You'd really need to look at aircraft that were once equipped with steam gauges and later given glass cockpits to make a valid comparison.

I find the opposite in my T182T. I learned many years ago in the standard gauges and now have about 5 hours of dual in this glass unit. The backup steam gauges are so low on the panel, I don't think I have ever looked at them in flight yet. In fact, I'm afraid I might forget where they are if the main panels go out. Anyway, I seem to mostly be flying by looking out the window and glancing at the panels.

 

[TMetzinger]

Interesting. It's telling to say the overall accident rate is lower (something I missed in the earlier discussion) but the fatalities are higher.

To me that says "You're less likely to have an accident in this airplane, but if you do, it's more likely to be a bad one". That matches up with the more "serious" nature of the flying done in these airplanes. Lots of X/C in IMC.

 

[Everskyward]

To me that says "You're less likely to have an accident in this airplane, but if you do, it's more likely to be a bad one". That matches up with the more "serious" nature of the flying done in these airplanes. Lots of X/C in IMC.

That corresponds to what they found in the study according to some of the links within Peggy's link.

http://www.ntsb.gov/Events/2010/Safety-Study-Glass-Cockpit/Quantitative Analysis.pdf

http://www.ntsb.gov/Events/2010/Safety-Study-Glass-Cockpit/Qualitative Analysis.pdf

 

[George Waddington]

The Flight Management Computers, Engine Information Systems and such can create a too much information trap. We frequently referred to these systems as the "Heads Down" display. I am in favor of them but they must be used with discretion.

 

[Trapper John]

To me that says "You're less likely to have an accident in this airplane, but if you do, it's more likely to be a bad one". That matches up with the more "serious" nature of the flying done in these airplanes. Lots of X/C in IMC.

That's interesting. 20 years ago, the big worry was non-instrument-rated pilots going into IMC and meeting their maker. Now, it's instrument-rated pilots with the best equipment ever going into IMC and meeting their maker. Go figure...


Trapper John

 

[Dan Thomas]

The Flight Management Computers, Engine Information Systems and such can create a too much information trap. We frequently referred to these systems as the "Heads Down" display. I am in favor of them but they must be used with discretion.

That's what we find with the glass. If the pilot isn't thoroughly familiar with the system he'll spend way too much time fooling with the dozens of pages of data in the MFD, and if he trusts the XM weather displays too much he'll be tempted to fly into weather he doesn't have any skills for. In one case he runs into things....wait, no: in both cases he runs into things.

I'd like to see a simple glass cockpit without all the extra doodads, basically the flight and engine instruments and the moving map; nothing more.

Whether some of us old guys like it or not, this stuff is coming to all airplanes sooner or later. Mechanical instruments cost far more to make than this glass stuff, just like wind-up watches cost far more to make then digital watches because of the need to manually assemble all those tiny gears and bearings and shafts and make them all work nicely. Modern electronics are created on circuit boards and chips that are created photographically and the tiny bits are placed and soldered by robots, and once the market gets halfway saturated and more outfits are building the stuff, the price can and must come way down. I can envision a time when you won't be able to buy a new mechanical airspeed indicator, for instance. It'll be a PMA's digital thing that fits into the same hole in your panel, maybe with a mechanical needle, maybe with an LCD display that shows a needle, and we already have numerical digital tachs. No moving parts. There are already certified crossover tachometers like this:
http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/inpages/tso_tachometer.php

Dan

 

[weilke]

Mechanical instruments cost far more to make than this glass stuff, just like wind-up watches cost far more to make then digital watches because of the need to manually assemble all those tiny gears and bearings and shafts and make them all work nicely.

I keep hearing that, but then you look at the prices commanded by those glass instruments and the story is very different.

New planes are moving to glass because the marketplace wants it that way. People are willing to pay a premium to look at screens.

The other argument for glass is an increased mean time between failures. But if they fail, they tend to fail for good, and looking at the bills for glass cockpit repairs, $500 here or there to overhaul a gyro instrument or vacuum pump seems rather quaint.

The other factor that makes glass expensive is the planned obsolecence of those systems. People are starting to pull Avidyne panels out of 2004 aircraft to replace them with 80 AMU worth of new Avidyne stuff. Again, a gyro here or there, getting an ASI re-screened or swapping out a $2000 radio starts to look like a bargain.

 

[Dan Thomas]

I keep hearing that, but then you look at the prices commanded by those glass instruments and the story is very different.

Profit, and recovery of R&D. Any newfangled stuff is way more expensive than the production costs would justify. They'll come down the same way TVs and computers did. Remember what handheld GPS's used to cost?

Dan

 

[poadeleted20]

I've always said that when it comes to safety, the most important part of the airplane is the nut that holds the yoke. I'd rather fly in a steam gauge/vacuum pump plane with a pilot proficient in partial panel operations than a glass-panel Cirrus with a pilot who's lost without the PFD.

 

[DutchessFlier]

Some instructors I talk to say that they see a definite difference in how the students deal with the world OUTSIDE the plane when flying glass panel VS steam gauges. Guess which ones have a better situational awareness outside the plane...
The comments also point out that younger students, who fly the glass, tend to think of the flying experience as akin to using a video game...its a weird sort of detachment from the fact that they are not flying a game-boy / x-box etc, but a real machine, in a real environment that takes alot of undoing as they progress in their training.
For me, I agree with Ted: My steam gauges in 71D with the 430W, and the GTX 330 transponder for some additional traffic awareness and I am good to go.

 

[270win]

We almost bought a Cessna 400 last December. We took a demo flight and I have to say the G1000 was quite impressive...but I also found it to be somewhat overwhelming in the amount of information available at one time.

If we don't go to a twin, I'm also looking at a G500 with one 430W, mode S transponder, and my #1 KX155 and KN64 DME. Or maybe a Sandel?

Anyway, I would guess that one problem with the increased capability of the new systems is the inability of the pilot trying to use all of that information. I can also see where a pilot might push on into weather they would not otherwise attempt with steam gauges.

 

[somorris]

I'd rather fly in a steam gauge/vacuum pump plane with a pilot proficient in partial panel operations than a glass-panel Cirrus with a pilot who's lost without the PFD.

I'm with you 100% Cap'n Ron. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future when all the steam gage guys are gone.

 

[EdFred]

My big problem with steam gauges is keeping the fire hot enough in the boiler. And getting dirty from all the coal I have to keep in the plane.

 

[Clark1961]

My big problem with steam gauges is keeping the fire hot enough in the boiler. And getting dirty from all the coal I have to keep in the plane.

Of course you could always convert to a modern bunker oil fired system with a thermostat control on the feed...