Lots of sim wizards out there, that stare at
the gauges and don't bother looking outside.
Earlier this year, I checked out a couple guys
on their new-to-them RV-7A. Nice airplane.
They had this monstrous checklist that I put
away in the back. I had them do a simple
cockpit flow of a couple items and told them to
LOOK OUTSIDE
One of the owners told me that he thought he
would probably die, if the EFIS's went blank.
Needless to say, I popped both EFIS cct breakers
and we went flying with no instruments - at all.
No backup steam gauges in that airplane.
He flew the airplane just fine, once he put the
power where it usually was, and the nose where
it usually went.
ATTITUDE + POWER = PERFORMANCE
is a lesson that seems lost, these days. I won't
mention AF447.
He was amazed and happy, that he could fly the
aircraft, without staring at the instrument panel.
Instead, he just
LOOKED OUTSIDE
I know that my ideas are anachronistic, but really,
for VFR flight, do you need any gauges at all? Nope.
I fly many VFR aircraft that have no gyroscopic
gauges at all. Just an airspeed indicator and an
altimeter. Not even a ball. Not even a VSI.
You don't need all that fancy stuff, for VFR flight.
You don't need to spend the whole flight, looking
inside the aircraft, staring at your Foreskin on your
maxipad.
If you want to play with toys, just do it on the sim.