Glass Cockpits and Regionals
 

Hey everybody, as a new poster on this forum who will most likely be moving on to the regionals in a year or two, i have a question about glass cockpits. I am going to school at Western Michigan University and really enjoying it. However, the primary aircraft that we use for training are Cirrus SR-20/22's with full glass cockpits. Western says that "advanced aircraft" training will make us more marketable??? Is this true? How many regionals and 135 operators actually operate aircraft with glass?? Not dishing on Western, i like the program, just looking for answers from people in the industry. Safe skies everybody.

A good old fashioned Cessna 152 is all you need.

I'm a CFI at WMU, and I agree with PMeyer. The rates we charge you guys on the Cirrus are ridiculous.

I got my private in a 152, so i know the drill when it comes to steam gauges. I was just wondering how beneficial the glass will be when interview time comes.

Most of them, in fact.

The main benefit of training and operating EFIS equipped aircraft is knowing how the displays function, how to select their functions, and know their failure modes. Beyond that, all they are doing is indicating the same information that was displayed by analog instruments, back in the Pleistocene Epoch.

definately skip the glass cockpit thing. Get your training in the absolute CHEAPEST airplane you can possibly find and save the money, you will definately need it. If you so desire after your ratings have someone with a G1000 sim or avidyne sim just show you a few things at the most and you really dont even need that.

The plane I fly is all glass and id say over 80% of my class had no glass experience and up to now none of them had a problem with the transition. The whole "glass" training thing is a myth. It does not take you 200 hours in glass during training to be able to handle the transition. Id equate it to to jumping from a 152 to a 172 and no more difficult than that.

Get your ratings in the cheapest thing possible, then when your get your CFI and CFII you can instruct in a glass cockpit Cirrus at your current school =)

Your attitude at the interview is more important than anything. Get your ratings done cheap and save the money.

I'd say it's easier to transition from ol' fashioned to EFIS gauges, but not so easy the other way around, if you happen to get into a situation where you have to use steam gauges, you'll have that experience.

Why not? It's expensive and they babysit you.