What's the deal with Panels?

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skiermike

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Skiermike
So, it seems like every time you change as much as a screw in an airplane, it has to be STC'ed and what-not, but I see tons of random stuff in panels that can't be. The expensive GPS's make sense, and if I remember correctly all that stuff is, in fact, an STC'ed installation. I've been looking at older, less expensive planes that have the most random add-ins - Panel mount 296s, clocks, clearly replaced DGs and other instruments, even planes where the panels themselves look like they were hacked out of plywood with a jigsaw. There's an otherwise attractive Maule on Barnstormers right now that looks like someone pop-riveted together an aluminum box and stuffed it under the windshield to make a panel.

What am I missing? Are these changes allowed? Are panels given some sort of special leeway?
 
Each charge was an approved instrument signed off as a modification by someone. Panel docks they let slide as legal as technically whatever is docked isn't installed in the plane...


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What about the cut-from-plywood looking panels that are clearly one-off jobs?
 
Nothing wrong with wood...

But I've never seen one that sounds like that, ya looking in the bargain bin?


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Also you have to realize that compliance with all the rules about panels is effectively on the honor system with the owners and mechanics who may or may not actually be signing off on this stuff.

Most of us... at least I think most of us... stay within the lines and follow the rules but honestly I bet I could pick up a car stereo and install it in my panel and get away with it for as long as I own the plane.
 
Got a ride in a Cozy IV today. Panel was all glass, two axis autopilot, and Garmin radios etc that dump freqs into the radio etc. Flies coupled approaches but not yet legal. Whole panel cost less than any ONE installed, STCed component.....
But things are changing. Don't know why FAA is going along with it. Must be some reason that makes sense for their funding?
 
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Goofy said:
Got a ride in a Cozy IV today. Panel was all glass, two axis autopilot, and Garmin radios etc that dump freqs into the radio etc. Flies coupled approaches but not yet legal. Whole panel cost less than an installed, STCed any ONE component.....
But thongs are changing. Don't know why FAA is going along with it. Must b e some reason that makes sense for their funding?
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Maybe the FAA is starting to realize that turning GA into a top 1% hobby doesn't do them any favors.
 
asicer said:
Maybe they're also starting to realize that modern avionics add safety rather than take it away.
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Bull. There's no way that electronics make anything safer. Solid state AI? Engine monitors? Autopilots? No. All of those things make everything LESS safe. Just look at the airlines. Ever since they added digitization to commercial aircraft, they just fall out of the sky seemingly without reason.
 
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Wait, the... FAA is getting better? (re: the comment about the FAA realizing making this a top 1% hobby isn't so good). I've been out of flying for a couple years but is there some truth to this? Can you give me an example?

The only one I can think of is the recent medical changes. I just attribute that to a powerful AOPA lobby made up of an aging pilot population that are at risk of losing their medicals and made this issue their hill to die on.
 
"Bull. There's no way that electronics make anything safer. Solid state AI? Engine monitors? Autopilots? No. All of those things make everything LESS safe. Just look at the airlines. Every since they added digitization to commercial aircraft, they just fall out of the sky seemingly without reason."

There is a little truth to your statement but I disagree that the addition of digitization causes airliners to "fall out of the sky without reason" is the cause. I think where your statement is correct is the surrendering of basic skills to the digitization. The safety record is extremely high now compared to years ago with steam gauges. Information overload and conflicting overload...ABSOLUTELY! When you have the over speed warning going off at the same time as the low speed warnings and error messages popping up telling you of various system failures or errors...all at the same time...well yes it can get a bit confusing. The interactions of one system to another is mind boggling. However the reason, IN MY OPINION, that planes are falling out of the sky without reason, is the same today as it was fifty years ago...the pilot. I am not an instructor at the jet level but I spoke yesterday with two of the line pilots at my airline that are (and extremely good ones) and they told me that the problems that they are seeing now with the "younger" pilots coming in, is the ability to fly the computers, the glass, is very good but when it goes bad they do not have the stick and rudder skills and the ability to go "mental spatial awareness" of us old farts and steam gauges. The ability to turn it off and just fly the airplane is dying due to in no small part, to the increasing number of training aircraft that have glass etc. Please don't get me wrong...I LOVE the glass cockpit but when was the last time any of us get in the plane and turn off the GPS and get out the E6B and a sectional and draw a rhumb line and fly it with the compass, clock and eyeballs? We went through a period (FAA mandated) that we were to turn everything on and show we can fly the FMC and command the airplane to do what we wanted. The big push now is that when anything is done on the Flight Control Panel that it is verbalized and pointed out on the Mode Control to verify we are getting what we thought we asked for.

My daughter in law just earned her PPL and while studying for the written, she said "why do I need to learn about VOR's when all we do is fly the GPS?" Some day, relatively soon, young pilots are going to say "You used a GPS to navigate?" How dinosaur.

It goes back to the pilot...do they take the time to keep the old skills, the new skills etc. sharp? Or do they go into autopilot and GPS Nav daze?
 
Our FAA is very good. We are just spoiled compared to much of the world. And there have been improvements in recent years...


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MD11Pilot said:
"Bull. There's no way that electronics make anything safer. Solid state AI? Engine monitors? Autopilots? No. All of those things make everything LESS safe. Just look at the airlines. Every since they added digitization to commercial aircraft, they just fall out of the sky seemingly without reason."

There is a little truth to your statement but I disagree that the addition of digitization causes airliners to "fall out of the sky without reason" is the cause. I think where your statement is correct is the surrendering of basic skills to the digitization. The safety record is extremely high now compared to years ago with steam gauges. Information overload and conflicting overload...ABSOLUTELY! When you have the over speed warning going off at the same time as the low speed warnings and error messages popping up telling you of various system failures or errors...all at the same time...well yes it can get a bit confusing. The interactions of one system to another is mind boggling. However the reason, IN MY OPINION, that planes are falling out of the sky without reason, is the same today as it was fifty years ago...the pilot. I am not an instructor at the jet level but I spoke yesterday with two of the line pilots at my airline that are (and extremely good ones) and they told me that the problems that they are seeing now with the "younger" pilots coming in, is the ability to fly the computers, the glass, is very good but when it goes bad they do not have the stick and rudder skills and the ability to go "mental spatial awareness" of us old farts and steam gauges. The ability to turn it off and just fly the airplane is dying due to in no small part, to the increasing number of training aircraft that have glass etc. Please don't get me wrong...I LOVE the glass cockpit but when was the last time any of us get in the plane and turn off the GPS and get out the E6B and a sectional and draw a rhumb line and fly it with the compass, clock and eyeballs? We went through a period (FAA mandated) that we were to turn everything on and show we can fly the FMC and command the airplane to do what we wanted. The big push now is that when anything is done on the Flight Control Panel that it is verbalized and pointed out on the Mode Control to verify we are getting what we thought we asked for.

My daughter in law just earned her PPL and while studying for the written, she said "why do I need to learn about VOR's when all we do is fly the GPS?" Some day, relatively soon, young pilots are going to say "You used a GPS to navigate?" How dinosaur.

It goes back to the pilot...do they take the time to keep the old skills, the new skills etc. sharp? Or do they go into autopilot and GPS Nav daze?
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This is why we need a sarcasm font.
 
ircphoenix said:
This is why we need a sarcasm font.
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No, there was some truth in your sarcasm, aside from being overstated.

The overall accident rate is about the same with glass vs. steam in single engine spam cans. Certain classes of fatal accidents have gotten worse.

All technology has benefits and costs. This board tends to completely ignore costs. More information is not always better.
 
MAKG1 said:
The overall accident rate is about the same with glass vs. steam in single engine spam cans. Certain classes of fatal accidents have gotten worse.

All technology has benefits and costs. This board tends to completely ignore costs. More information is not always better.
Click to expand...

I've always felt that if two planes are flown "in the same psychological manner" than glass and gadgetry, chutes, etc., will make you safer. The problem is, planes are not flown in the same manner. Take for example a steam gauge 172 and a non FIKI but glass SR20. I am willing to bet that most pilots (at least the ones I know) will fly the SR20 into far more challenging places and scenarios than the Skyhawk pilot would. So while the "safety quotient" may go up 20% with glass/chutes/etc., you're going to push yourself and the plane much harder, often landing you not just back at square one, but in a riskier situation than before

When I lived on the east coast I had a front wheel drive Mini, before my Toyota truck, and I always found it ironic that many of the cars I saw in the ditch during s a snow storm where brand spanking new Range Rovers and other mega high tech all wheel drive cars. Same principle I bet
 
Tantalum said:
I've always felt that if two planes are flown "in the same psychological manner" than glass and gadgetry, chutes, etc., will make you safer. The problem is, planes are not flown in the same manner. Take for example a steam gauge 172 and a non FIKI but glass SR20. I am willing to bet that most pilots (at least the ones I know) will fly the SR20 into far more challenging places and scenarios than the Skyhawk pilot would. So while the "safety quotient" may go up 20% with glass/chutes/etc., you're going to push yourself and the plane much harder, often landing you not just back at square one, but in a riskier situation than before

When I lived on the east coast I had a front wheel drive Mini, before my Toyota truck, and I always found it ironic that many of the cars I saw in the ditch during s a snow storm where brand spanking new Range Rovers and other mega high tech all wheel drive cars. Same principle I bet
Click to expand...

That's a pretty good analogy actually. A 4x4/AWD really is safer and better in snow but user error can cancel out that improvement.

I've listened to/read many stories from aviators in the pre-gps era. There were a LOT of getting lost stories. I know of quite a few crashes that were caused by that. Is it still possible even with a GPS? Of course but you don't hear about it happening very often these days do you?
 
Tantalum said:
I've always felt that if two planes are flown "in the same psychological manner" than glass and gadgetry, chutes, etc., will make you safer. The problem is, planes are not flown in the same manner. Take for example a steam gauge 172 and a non FIKI but glass SR20. I am willing to bet that most pilots (at least the ones I know) will fly the SR20 into far more challenging places and scenarios than the Skyhawk pilot would. So while the "safety quotient" may go up 20% with glass/chutes/etc., you're going to push yourself and the plane much harder, often landing you not just back at square one, but in a riskier situation than before

When I lived on the east coast I had a front wheel drive Mini, before my Toyota truck, and I always found it ironic that many of the cars I saw in the ditch during s a snow storm where brand spanking new Range Rovers and other mega high tech all wheel drive cars. Same principle I bet
Click to expand...

For decades pilots have used their non-FIKI, NON-GLASS Bo's, Mooneys, etc for much more than an average Skyhawk. Has less to do with glass, and more to do with the capability differences of the aircraft.

The fatality rate differences have a lot to do with the higher flight and stall speeds. More speed, more forward momentum, more energy to dissipate when something goes wrong.

The real breakthrough with the Cirrus CAPS system was taking that forward velocity vector almost completely out of the equation (other than drift due to wind). Pulling the chute all but eliminates the highly variable and relatively unpredictable forward momentum energy dissipation problem at impact to one of relatively constant, known vertical momentum dissipation that can be predictably dealt with by engineering the landing gear, fuselage structure, seat suspension system, etc. The sample size with the Cirrus fleet incidents is now large enough that the results are (imo) irrefutable.

Let's hope the training regimen for V-jet owners maintains that performance. GA will better off if it does.

And hopefully those pilots don't get so preoccupied with the bells and whistles arcade on the panel they forget to pull the red handle when they should. :rolleyes: :D
 
GRG55 said:
And hopefully those pilots don't get so preoccupied with the bells and whistles arcade on the panel
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Reminded me of the PC12 that went down in Florida (I believe it was Casey Anthony's lawyer's old plane?)... the guy was only recently transitioned / checked out in it, was in IMC, and got hopelessly upset messing around with the autopilot in the clouds. Ended up shearing the wings off.
 
asicer said:
The psych term for it is "risk compensation".
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gsengle said:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation#Risk_homeostasis
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"In a Munich study, part of a fleet of taxicabs were equipped with anti-lock brakes (ABS), while the remainder had conventional brake systems. In other respects, the two types of cars were identical. The crash rates, studied over three years, were a little higher for the cabs with ABS,[6] Wilde concluded that drivers of ABS-equipped cabs took more risks, assuming that ABS would take care of them; non-ABS drivers were said to drive more carefully since they could not rely on ABS in a dangerous situation."

I feel like there should have been a third group, where people were given cars with ABS but not told they had ABS... where that would have fallen
 
GRG55 said:
For decades pilots have used their non-FIKI, NON-GLASS Bo's, Mooneys, etc for much more than an average Skyhawk. Has less to do with glass, and more to do with the capability differences of the aircraft.

The fatality rate differences have a lot to do with the higher flight and stall speeds. More speed, more forward momentum, more energy to dissipate when something goes wrong.

The real breakthrough with the Cirrus CAPS system was taking that forward velocity vector almost completely out of the equation (other than drift due to wind). Pulling the chute all but eliminates the highly variable and relatively unpredictable forward momentum energy dissipation problem at impact to one of relatively constant, known vertical momentum dissipation that can be predictably dealt with by engineering the landing gear, fuselage structure, seat suspension system, etc. The sample size with the Cirrus fleet incidents is now large enough that the results are (imo) irrefutable.

Let's hope the training regimen for V-jet owners maintains that performance. GA will better off if it does.

And hopefully those pilots don't get so preoccupied with the bells and whistles arcade on the panel they forget to pull the red handle when they should. :rolleyes: :D
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You mention fatality rate, then say Cirrus changed it, and Ron's recent analysis shows identical fatality rates per accident as the airplanes you listed as being more fatal. They aren't. Only the Bo beats the Cirrus as a fleet. And only by a couple of percentage points.

The active Cirrus fleet over the past decade has been as fatal as the previous non-Cirrus fleet.

This, of course, if you think about it, makes sense. The pilot population didn't change. Nearly identical numbers of fatal mistakes made by materially unchanged pilot population in ability, skill, training, and what-not.
 
Methinks that fatalities will go down as technology is increasingly made available to the rest of the legacy GA fleet akin to the fatal traffic collision rate after the introduction of things like safety glass, seat belts, ABS, airbags etc.

And before we start citing instances where those things didn't help, stop picking trees and missing the forest.
 
denverpilot said:
You mention fatality rate, then say Cirrus changed it, and Ron's recent analysis shows identical fatality rates per accident as the airplanes you listed as being more fatal. They aren't. Only the Bo beats the Cirrus as a fleet. And only by a couple of percentage points.

The active Cirrus fleet over the past decade has been as fatal as the previous non-Cirrus fleet.

This, of course, if you think about it, makes sense. The pilot population didn't change. Nearly identical numbers of fatal mistakes made by materially unchanged pilot population in ability, skill, training, and what-not.
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You are taking a selective interpretation of the data and time frame. There's no need for me to repeat the plentiful information previously posted on this site about the dramatic training influenced change in the Cirrus fatal accident rate since the peak year in 2011. I am anything but a shill for Cirrus, but these statistics are irrefutable. If you wish to persist in your position that the SR series Cirrus airplanes have a similar fatality rate as the rest of the fleet, so be it. A more granular look at the data does not support you.

This is analogous in some ways to what happened to the accident frequency for the MU-2 many years ago.
 
GRG55 said:
You are taking a selective interpretation of the data and time frame. There's no need for me to repeat the plentiful information previously posted on this site about the dramatic training influenced change in the Cirrus fatal accident rate since the peak year in 2011. I am anything but a shill for Cirrus, but these statistics are irrefutable. If you wish to persist in your position that the SR series Cirrus airplanes have a similar fatality rate as the rest of the fleet, so be it. A more granular look at the data does not support you.

This is analogous in some ways to what happened to the accident frequency for the MU-2 many years ago.
Click to expand...

I didn't ignore it. Since the training push, they are equally as fatal as the rest of the fleet now, instead of leading the pack with the Bo.

The marketing about the BRS is strong, but the numbers end up making the aircraft roughly as deadly as the fleet without BRS after a mass training effort.

That's not particularly encouraging -- especially insinuating that it's as tricky to fly as an MU-2 (your words, not mine) which has special training required by law nowadays.

But I think you were reaching for an example and that's a poor one for your case, so naturally I'll just stick to the much simpler explanation. No need to be making up dramatic stuff about it:

Pilots make the same mistakes fleet-wide and BRS brings the Cirrus down from top of the heap in fatality rate, tied with the Bo, back to Earth where pilots die roughly equally as a percentage of accidents, as any other airplane.

Ron's chart showed that very clearly.

I'm not picking on it, it's just irrefutable numbers.

The only other simple possibility is that Cirrus attracts very poor pilots, and I definitely haven't said that. (Someone trolling with those numbers probably would. I think it's simpler.)
 
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