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Old 6th Jun 2004, 15:32
  #60 (permalink)  
Evo
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Chichester, UK
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Ian - a troll is one who posts controversial views with the intention of provoking an argument. Your views can certainly be read as unconventional - especially as 'no mode Charlie' includes those with no transponder, not just those with only mode Alpha - and your closing statement of 'Okay now you can all "flame me"' made me uncertain if you were posting to get a reaction or were trying to make a serious point. I can agree when you say "In my opinion mode A is just a pain. Why not have negative transponder or mode C?", but it's not obvious that that was your point from your original posts. Sadly the troll is all too common online, so I hope you will forgive my response.

I would agree that glass-cockpit recreational (for want of a better word) aeroplanes will soon start to out-sell traditionally-instrumented aeroplanes, if they haven't already. I have no idea of the statistics, and would suspect that the healthy homebuilt and microlight markets probably mean that new registrations are still mainly traditional, but I imagine few people buying, for example, a new C182 would not buy a glass-cockpit, and the low-end market will surely follow as prices drop. However, the life of GA aeroplanes is long, and I imagine it will be a decade or more before anything other than a small fraction of the UK fleet has the sort of advanced instrumentation found today in a Cirrus, and the cost of equipment and ongoing maintenance will mean that a sizeable proportion will essentially never have it - i'm thinking of the PFA fleet here, but there is a joy to flying a basic, uninstrumented aeroplane that I suspect will only be lost if it is legislated away. Some people just want stick and rudder, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I have no doubt that the Cirrus is a great aeroplane; the benefits of the equipment are, I think, unarguable, and I would love to have access to one for when i'd like to go touring. However, you did say that "I propose that the CAA ban flight above 1,500feet if you have no Mode Charlie" and I think it's unrealistic, and somewhat unhelpful, to expect the rest of aviation to change to fit equipment that most will not have for years, if ever.

Ben (aka Evo).
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