Steam Gauges to G5

Ventucky Red

Ventucky Red

Pattern Altitude
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Jon
So, what was your learning curve in doing this?

I have a few hours in a 172 with a G1000, but that was some time ago, been flying the gauges and chasing the needles as of late..

Advice?
 
I had a steam gauge attitude indicator and getting the G5 was the best investment in my aviation life outside the plane itself.
Takes no adjustment time and it packs more information into that little screen than I thought possible. By the end of my first flight I felt completely comfortable using it.
I would struggle to go back to a less reliable, vacuum driven steam gauge.
 
Ventucky Red said:
So, what was your learning curve in doing this?

I have a few hours in a 172 with a G1000, but that was some time ago, been flying the gauges and chasing the needles as of late..

Advice?
Click to expand...
Get in and fly them. There will be a very short adjustment period. I was comfortable with them in 30 mins flight by the time I got back to my home airport. I was like you, had about 20 hrs in a G1000 172. I feel because of that it was easy to get used to the G5s.
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My experience paralleled that of @ArrowFlyer86 . Ignoring the factory airspeed was immediate. I used the old altimeter for a couple hours. If somebody stole them at this point I wouldn't notice. I still occasionally glance at the old TC and VSI, as the g5 presentations of those are pretty small and hard to see.
 
I went from steam gauges to a Grand Rapids full glass panel. Took me about 10 minutes. For some reason, I still had hunt for the VSI a few times.

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Fairly low learning curve; if you got a G GPS and do IFR, there’s a bit of more to learn, but nothing as complicated as a G1000 unless you’ve got a 530, which I think is easier than the G1000 anyways.

The biggest thing to keep in mind is if you did not do the GMU11, you don’t get a heading, only TRK is displayed. If you lose/don’t have GPS TRK info, you get the red X.

ETA: if you’r doing IFR procedures, the GMU11 is required by STC, IIRC. There’s some intricacies around color of guidance queues (magenta vs green). The standard rate triangles at the top of the indicator are most helpful. The HSI gives you wind corrected course correction, which is nice.

If you’ve got a nav2, nice to wire it up so a second bearing pointer is available on the HSI. I’ve used magenta HSI with Nav1 pointer and Nav2 pointer on different VORs as a crosscheck on the crossing radial fixes.
 
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I've been flying with mine a while. I still look at it doubtfully.... Maybe too many years flying on the old technology..

Have had zero problems with it.
 
I still scan the other analog gauges. I would notice very quickly if they didn't match.
In other words I am still flying a 6 pak, just with a ton of more info and a GPS.'
I have a HSI, it is so nice. I am so spoiled by it.
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It took me awhile to get used to them, my training aircraft started with the steam gauges and added two G5’s later on. I felt that the new instruments were smaller and more difficult to read. But you get used to it.
 
The transition was pretty easy and quick. The condensation of scan when flying IFR approaches is a terrific safety feature. Everything is right in front of you. My hardest scan habit to break was referring to the analog altimeter, although it's not a bad thing to verify that the G5 and the analog altimeter are saying the same thing plus or minus. The analog airspeed scan was the easiest to ditch, but the analog turn coordinator is still useful for making standard rate turns. A huge plus is no parallax in the AI, and it's incredibly precise for flying "by the numbers."

Something to be aware of is the G5 AI is set to zero degrees at a fixed attitude (usually with the aircraft level on the ground) and is not adjustable in flight for a certificated install. So you may have to learn new "numbers". For example, for my plane, level flight at 90 kt and 2200 rpm is 2 degrees nose up, a 90 kt descent at 500 fpm at 1900 rpm is one degree nose down, Vy climb at full throttle is 8 degrees nose up, etc. These are reproducible from flight to flight.

The biggest gotcha is ingraining the correct buttonology to set up GPSS roll steering with the autopilot. Miss a button or two and the AP goes off in an unexpected direction. Best to work that out in VFR conditions.

i'd never prefer to give up my dual G5s for analog gauges. They are a game changer. And I got to rip out the vacuum system to boot.
 
I trained PPL on a G1000...so that is all I knew...I actually asked my CFI to do a few flight in a steam gauge cuz I knew I would likely not be able to afford to purchase a plane with full glass...ended up with an Aspen which is the best of both worlds giving me both a glass readout and full six pack of steam.

Even through IFR, while I love having the digital readouts I find myself actually flying by the steam gauges...for some reason I can pick up on trends easier than on the glass.

...but I was also never a video game player.
 
Ventucky Red said:
So, what was your learning curve in doing this?

I have a few hours in a 172 with a G1000, but that was some time ago, been flying the gauges and chasing the needles as of late..

Advice?
Click to expand...
Zero for VFR.

IFR, its definitely a change to incorporate into your scan and IFR procedures. The first 80% of incorporating it is easy. But I don't think I am 100% there yet for IFR, although I am admittedly not current.
 
chemgeek said:
The transition was pretty easy and quick. The condensation of scan when flying IFR approaches is a terrific safety feature. Everything is right in front of you. My hardest scan habit to break was referring to the analog altimeter, although it's not a bad thing to verify that the G5 and the analog altimeter are saying the same thing plus or minus. The analog airspeed scan was the easiest to ditch, but the analog turn coordinator is still useful for making standard rate turns. A huge plus is no parallax in the AI, and it's incredibly precise for flying "by the numbers."

Something to be aware of is the G5 AI is set to zero degrees at a fixed attitude (usually with the aircraft level on the ground) and is not adjustable in flight for a certificated install. So you may have to learn new "numbers". For example, for my plane, level flight at 90 kt and 2200 rpm is 2 degrees nose up, a 90 kt descent at 500 fpm at 1900 rpm is one degree nose down, Vy climb at full throttle is 8 degrees nose up, etc. These are reproducible from flight to flight.

The biggest gotcha is ingraining the correct buttonology to set up GPSS roll steering with the autopilot. Miss a button or two and the AP goes off in an unexpected direction. Best to work that out in VFR conditions.

i'd never prefer to give up my dual G5s for analog gauges. They are a game changer. And I got to rip out the vacuum system to boot.
Click to expand...
What was your cost for the G5’s, install, and removal of the vacuum system?

Do you think this “new numbers” is due to being more accurate or do you think the steam gauge AI is more accurate as far as pitch. (Not challenging the G5’s, I wouldn’t mind them, would be nice if they could fit in with the existing steam gauge holes)
 
mandm said:
What was your cost for the G5’s, install, and removal of the vacuum system?

Do you think this “new numbers” is due to being more accurate or do you think the steam gauge AI is more accurate as far as pitch. (Not challenging the G5’s, I wouldn’t mind them, would be nice if they could fit in with the existing steam gauge holes)
Click to expand...
I think we were around 19k for two G5s plus a GNX 375 installed and vac system removed. I have posted the number before, so if I said something earlier that's different, the earlier number is correct.
 
I have two G5s with a panel mounted Garmin 660. In a 150 feel much better now that vacuum system is gone.
 
Biggest issue I had was figuring out how to set the screen brightness at night time, It would go so dark I couldn't see it.
After reading the manual a bit was able to resolve that.

Now I don't remember if it was actually setting the brightness or setting the Default Brightness so I didn't have to set it every time that I had to look up.

I still only occasionally fly with the G5's.

Brian
 
G5 HSI is brilliant. As an AI it’s fine enough, but doesn’t really give more info than any other AI IMHO. Tend to have two AIs anyhow, one EFIS and one dumb.

Like a mechanical altimeter as it’s like the digital vs analogue watch analogy - can interpret far faster needle up (IFR) or down (VFR).

In the panel shown I’d move the VSI one hole to the right and put a midcontinent w/battery in the hole. Or an AV-30. Presumes IFR use.
 
Let the plane fly itself and you guide it. Don't chase - smooth, slow, small corrections. After a while it becomes automatic.
 
Ventucky Red said:
So, what was your learning curve in doing this?

I have a few hours in a 172 with a G1000, but that was some time ago, been flying the gauges and chasing the needles as of late..

Advice?
Click to expand...
The G5 is intuitive - the G1000 navigation was ghastly. Light lift to adapt.
 
mandm said:
What was your cost for the G5’s, install, and removal of the vacuum system?

Do you think this “new numbers” is due to being more accurate or do you think the steam gauge AI is more accurate as far as pitch. (Not challenging the G5’s, I wouldn’t mind them, would be nice if they could fit in with the existing steam gauge holes)
Click to expand...
I got a good deal on mine with a local installer, about $7K installed, including integration with the GNX430W and STEC autopilot, and removal of the vacuum system. That was a few years ago when they first came out. I added about 10 lb of useful load overall.

The G5s do fit in the existing holes, although if your holes are too closely spaced they may have to be enlarged slightly to achieve the correct spacing for the G5s. I'm pretty sure mine went straight in.

Because there is no parallax in a digital display, the attitude indications are very precise to read. And since you cannot re-adjust the indicator, all indications are 100% reproducible relative to the zero-degree reference established during install. The numbers are "different" because you cannot adjust the indicator in flight. So all numbers are absolute, not relative, and consistent from flight to flight. So, for me for example, level flight at 90 kt is not zero degrees, but a 2 degrees nose up. Always. All other numbers work from there. It's different than using the vacuum AI, but more reproducible and easier to precisely attain because of the digital, parallax-free display.

The biggest bonus with EFIS is night flying. No more muddily lit instruments. The G5s are nice and bright, and custom dimmable.
 
If you have both the G5 and the steam gauges, then the transition would be easy. You can always revert to the old stuff in a pinch. For me, the biggest adjustment was making the mental shift from reading the gauges like pictures to reading digits. With the analog airspeed indicator, landing speed is at the 3 o'clock position for nearly all airplanes. 6 o'clock is a slow cruise, and 9 o'clock is fast. Same with the altimeter. The small and large needles are read off like a clock forming a mental image. With a glass panel, you have the raw data in front of you, but not in picture form. It's like a going from a pictographic language like Chinese to an alphabetic language like English. Glass is clearly more compact, accurate and reliable, but there are some advantages to the analog representation as well.
 
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