Glass cockpits
Are glass cockpits that great?
I like technology in the cockpit but I've never flown in a glass cockpit plane. I have used well equipped conventional panels for instrument flights.
I would like to hear from people who have more than a few hours experience behind glass panels AND more traditional set-ups. Ideally, that person won't have just spent £200,000 of their own money on it because I am not sure how objective they can be!
A few specifics:
Functionality
I understand the idea of situational awareness. But do you get much more useful situational awareness than you get from, for example, an HSI and a pair of GNS4/530 which have terrain and traffic info? More generally, what real and tangible functional benefits does it offer? Ultimately you still need charts if I understand correctly what is shown on the moving maps (i.e. no airways, no vertical info). A nice wide artificial horizon might be easier to learn from scratch, but assuming one is already comfortable with a regular AI, are there other benefits?
Reliability
How reliable do you find it? I've read quite a lot about software problems. I'm not talking so much about a rare occasional failure that one could expect of any piece of technology since the backup instruments are there, but every day usage.
Usability
I've heard people complain about using a tape type gauge, as opposed to being able to glance at a dial and get a sense of a number by the position of a needle, but on the basis that both military and airline planes use this newer representation I figure one gets used to it and it's not a problem. But what about the modal nature of these integrated systems, whereby you have to switch modes to do different things or to read different information? Do you miss having a button or knob for each thing you want to do? What about the ability to operate by feel rather?
Legal Considerations
Assuming one wants to fly airways what do you do about the need for ADF and DME? Presumably the need for a second altimeter is taken care of by the standby altimeter? I believe that some kind of ADF receiver can be used which shows the RBI on the MF display? Can this be retrofitted? What about DME?