Originally Posted by JamesNoBrakes

Definitely agree about saying away from glass. There may come a time when most planes available have some sort of glass, but we are still a ways off, and the point is that "steam/round gauges" make a far better instrument pilot in my experience. Take two students, train one in glass, train one in round gauges. Then turn the tables and switch the airplanes on them. The glass guy keeps looking where the moving map used to be and can't figure out his position in "space". Now give an attitude indicator failure. I'm not making this up when I say that I've seen lots of "glass" trained pilots that would likely go out of control and die given an attitude failure in a "round dial" airplane. They were never taught or made to use timed turns. They didn't have to use compass turns. They were able to look at the GPS track and GPS map, and that's how they understand how to fly. The idea about where to scan most of the time is also completely lost in this transition, and it's compounded with an instrument failure. The structure of "how to fly" a round-gauge aircraft is not there and they struggle to control the aircraft, if not go out of control while flying instruments.

I don't think it works "both ways" at all. It's far easier to transition to and learn glass later, but if you don't learn "round gauges" you may do ridiculous things like fail your sim interview.

There's a big push to "get back to basics" from the FAA, but it's hard to really make that happen. I saw an article on Yahoo or something about an airplane that crashed after takeoff due to a possible spin, and a pilot made a comment of "always step on the ball!". No, you don't know that you're uncoordinated because you are looking at a "ball", you know you are uncoordinated because the FREAKING NOSE IS SLIDING LEFT (or whatever direction) relative to your total lift vector. This is something you feel and SEE. Unfortunately, it's not well understood.