Originally Posted by
JimEli
4 years and a few days past the
N72EX accident. How quickly we forget?
I am sorry, I do not get the logic.
1. N72EX
This was gross pilot incompetence. Fully qualified (in terms of license, recency) IFR-rated pilot and instructor, in a full IFR machine. Refusing or unable to mentally transition from VFR to IFR flying. Or simply hand the controls to George. I mean, it can't be that when tomorrow I take Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Munich, the airliner crashes. And people say, really bad, they entered cloud, and didn't they remember there was 100 years ago this pilot who also suffered spatial disorientation.
It is simply unacceptable that so many commercially rated pilots betray their employers by not being able to display basic skills.
2. Synthetic Vision
I made this argument before on these pages, I reckon maybe exactly 4 years ago:
- A current IFR rated pilot should be able to keep the blue side up, even without external visual cues, based on a standard 6-pack.
- We agree that a regular VFR pilot may struggle to integrate the information from the 6-pack into a mental picture and might suffer from spatial disorientation if no external visual cues.
- That same regular VFR pilot again is very much able to keep the sunny side up, if provided with external visual cues. In doing so they look at a screen the size of their cockpit window (the "windscreen").
- If those transparencies were replaced by a computer screen of the same size, displaying the outside world, our regular VFR pilot would equally have no difficulties.
All the above I hope is generally accepted. My point therefore is: What is the minimum size of that computer screen, so that the pilot's brain perceives the external visual cues needed to effortlessly maintain orientation in space?
Those who answer "never" will struggle to explain why things miraculously fall into place, once the computer screen reaches the same size as the windscreen. Clearly, there is a tipping point. It may be larger than the display size of a GI275, but smaller than "full screen" (ie, size of the windscreen).