Originally Posted by
Sunfish
Okihara:
The first rule of safety is not to put yourself in a position where you need all those gadgets. my understanding is that early on, Cirrus had a bad accident rate which has now been fixed by extra training.
I understand that pilots new to the hardware would delay pulling the chute to favour emergency landing. Extra training with checklists that made the parachute a first class citizen apparently did the trick.
Likewise, I personally hardly consider a shoulder strap to be a gadget nowadays. Seriously, while most cars as of 2019 have airbags, they also still have shoulder straps so why not just have them in light aircraft too?
As for not putting yourself in a position where those gadgets will come in handy, that's somewhat of a relative statement. A G430 or other GNSS device is hardly a "gadget" any more so I would ask: how many GA pilots would be as comfortable flying without one? A second engine is a gadget too. You'll obviously be more confident flying over tigerland in a twin.