Probably a dumb question, but figured I might as well ask...

If the goal is to one day fly for the airlines professionally, is there any benefit to starting my training on a Cessna 172 equipped with a G1000 instead of the standard 6-pack flight instrument setup?

I think it is a good idea to start off with the classic 6 pack just to get an idea/feel of the basics of flying. Then switch to the g1000. I know from my own personal experience I started in the g1000 for private and instrument. For commercial I went to a legacy 6 pack and actually liked it more. Both are great for learning, but in terms of practicality for the future, you are going to have avionics like the g1000 in front of you.

Do both, it will help you in the short and long run.

A few years ago, I would have said the opposite... but today most noobs will go straight to a glass jet, so might as well learn on that from day one (assuming you will CFI at a school with glass trainers).

BIG CAVEAT: If you have any intention of flying six-pack airplanes (as a CFI, or any other GA job) then better learn instruments on a six-pack. A glass trained pilot is very likely to die trying to fly hard IMC in a six-pack. It's much easier to go from steam gauges to glass than vice-versa.

If you learn on glass and then want to do GA for fun at some point later, get some thorough training on six-pack before you do go.

I’ll have to disagree with you there.
In my experience it’s eaiser to go from Glass to “6” then the other way around.
You learn to work with a lot more information from day one then just “let’s wait and see what happens”.
Your picture is more complete.
You do need an instructor though that can teach the difference and doesn’t teach “6” pack techniques on glass.
And if you’re a “glass only” instructor you should be wise enough not to do that IPC in the guy’s own Bonanza in IMC if it’s old-skool.
Legal doesn’t email smart or safe.
That’s what it says in the FAR’s: this is the legal way to do it.
But there’s always the CFI who can’t resist that extra hour ‘complex’ or that extra hour ‘multi’ or that extra hour ‘actual’.

In my years of instructing I found that it's much harder for a student to go from glass to 6 pack. I'm a proponent of starting in a 6 pack. It will keep you focused at the learning at hand rather than getting distracted by all the built ins you'll find in a glass cockpit. Also it aids in building a solid mental moving map of what's going on (especially during instrument training). Having sound situational awareness is an important part of flying if not THE most important during instrument flight. The glass cockpit can easily become a crutch when it comes to those important skills.

I taught at a ‘glass school’ and here is what we did:
No moving map the majority of the time.
Select one of the system pages or the engine page.
Pitch/power excercises are much more accurate on glass then on a tired 6-pack with a ‘bobble head’ attitude indicator.
G1000 component failures were trained in a level 5 FTD.
It goes to far to explain everything here but it’s an attitude change. Literally.
You can’t teach 6-pack on a glass panel.
And you can train the same ‘mental’ picture with glass.
You just need a ‘different’ Instructor.
With a 6-pack there is only one way to do a given task and with glass there may be 4-5 different ways.

Found Ken Wolf, describing a combination of Glass and Conventional Instruments in his Citation 525. After watching this video and after doing a lot of research on the question itself from a non-pilot looking at starting flight training, I was floored at the level of ignorance I had about what's required to achieve true competence as an Instrument Rated Pilot flying a VLJ:



Pretty clear that Ken, really cares about having Conventional back-up. Especially, for his Attitude Indicator - for which he has not 1, not 2 but three (3).

It was humbling watching him go through the systems so fluently. Drives home just how much work is necessary to become truly competent and how important it is to fully understand how the Conventional Instruments are supposed to work.

He admits (by implication) that the G3000 is better integrated than his set-up. But, he's so competent in his own cockpit that whatever his rig lacks, he more than makes up for with skill, knowledge and expertise on his configuration.

One again, this video brings up the same question in my mind relative to this OP: What happens when/if the GDU fails?

Ken's answer seems to be: Rely on your competence of the Conventional Instruments while troubleshooting the problem with your Glass.

It would seem to me that you'd have a hard time doing that without having at least some Conventional Instrumentation back-up. Having said that, Glass seems to be getting more and more prevalent and I'm really starting to see a divide in the Age of the pilot when it comes to this question. Older and more seasoned pilots seem to favor Conventional at the core with some Glass to help with highly task oriented workloads. Younger pilots seem to favor Glass to handle just about everything.

I am still not sure what I am going to do in this regard, but my gut is telling me to spend time getting deep into Conventional first, then make the transition to Glass, while allowing for Conventional back-up in my Time Building Airplane.

But, I'm still on the fence with the OP's question. With more research/study, I'm hoping to have an "Aha!" moment at some point where everything lines up and I know for sure what I should be doing with respect to the OP's question.

Right now, I just don't know enough. I'm too ignorant at this point. That's gonna change.

That caught my attention. I've heard that claim before. Thanks.

Another factor to consider is that renting a 6 pack trainer tends to be cheaper.