Well after flying a 6 pack for years I flew a G1000 for the first time last night. It will certainly take some getting use to. Does anyone have a few pointers to pass along?

Yeah, google the users manual and read it.

You shouldn't be flying behind anything you don't understand, or know how to operate.

I was up with a CFI. I am doing my multi in a DA42

Wow, such a friendly response on a social forum.


Anyway, I'm no expert, but if you're familiar with the Garmin 430, then the transition should be fairly simple as far as the center screen goes.

See if you can get a hold of the simulator program, and if not, ask the flight school if they can plug in the aircraft and let you sit in there with the G1000 fired up. Then you can sit there and push buttons and creating flight plans till your fingers are bloody nubs.

Well, his handle =is= "Grumble."

For the G1000, I'd spring the $25 to get the Garmin simulator. Think of the G1000 as a specialized computer. It has hardware, software and multiple levels of menus. You'll likely pick it up as quickly or as slowly as you pick up other technology but, overall, there's no substitute for creating scenarios for yourself and executing them on your desktop before doing it in the airplane.

If you want to do some self-study in addition, IMO the best stuff out there is my Max Trescott. Garmin G1000 Glass Cockpit Handbook and CD-ROM Course

Garmin put a lot of time and money into making those desktop sims and at $25 a pop they worth their weight in $50 bills. Some PCs have trouble with some of them however, and yours may crash. I have had great luck with the Cessna piston sims, but my CJ sim runs like crap and always did. Nobody can figure out why. It boots up slow and generally freezes. I have talked to numerous computer geeks about it, and nobody has a clue. Change the drivers, disable this and that, they have no idea.

Once your fingers are worn to bloody nubs practicing at home take a day back for healing, then get in a classroom and hear the certified lecture series on the system. The system is complex enough that just being proficient in switch-ology is not enough. You need an experienced teacher to give you various the details on how the thing operates and what the best practices are for operating it. Classroom is the way to do this.

Next go fly. Do flights covering

• busy airspace work, air work, unusual atittudes, emergencies
• approaches and IFR use (several flights for this)
• night use
• heavy weather & cross country use (nexrad, flight planning, etc)
• how to instruct using the system if you are a CFI

The more I think about it the more flights I can justify putting in my list, but ten flights would seem a bare minimum for a newbie. It is a complex avionics suite to be taken very seriously. I am not teaching on the G1000 now, but I was a certified Garmin G1000 instructor at one point and my VFR students routinely took 20+ hours get comfortable with the system only doing VFR tasks. Instructors and IFR pilots will require many more.

Fly the plane. Fly the plane. Fly the plane.

I've taught folks in the G1000 and almost all of them get wrapped up in the displays and info it presents. It's a great tool, but it's just that. At the end of the day, it's a different way of presenting the same info you are used to looking at.

Sure it has a lot more capabilities. Weather, moving maps, autopilot, FMS like qualities. But it's very important that you remain the pilot... As opposed to the guy sitting there staring at a screen wondering, "What the heck is this thing doing now?"

When all else fails, fall back on basic instrument scan and stick and rudder skills.

Oh. And be sure to look out the windows. Those screens are pretty and they suck eyeballs right to them. More than one G1000 pilot has had their closest calls while flying with both pilots looking inside fiddling with a flight plan or moving map.

I don't think there's a cockpit display or tool (including the basic 6-pack, VOR navs and paper charts) where this advice doesn't apply.

True. However, in my experience, glass cockpit pilots are much more likely to spend critical time troubleshooting the avionics/autopilot when things aren't working correctly than simply reducing the automation and relying on plain stick and rudder skills and basic attitude instrument flying.

If the autopilot isn't doing what you want it to- fly. Don't sit there driving off to who knows where while you try to figure out why the plane isn't doing what it's supposed to be doing.

Oh, glass systems are huge distractions. "Fly the airplane" is great advice with these systems. The tendency to distract is their main Achilles Heel. I do not know of any solution other than thorough training coupled with a high level of proficiency. The good news is anyone can buy a desktop trainer for their PC at home, and there really is no excuse in that case.