Why an Air Worthiness Directive now?
So my understanding is that in an ideal world any pilot would be able to land their aircraft safely using nothing but the basic electro-mechanical attitude, altitude, airspeed and compass indicators. Surely in an ideal world all the electronic displays going blank shouldn't be a problem at all (an inconvenience at worst).
I, as SLF, was kind of assuming that an air worthiness directive meant that something had to be done to ensure safety of flight. I appreciate that there is likely to be more to it than that. But does it imply that use of the electronic displays now officially considered essential rather than being simply very convenient?
Shame you added this to an otherwise excellent post. Unless you have tried it, then you will not realise how tricky flying on the standby instruments is in weather. They're tiny, offset, suffer badly from parallax error and display in a format we have been trained out of by modern EFIS formats. They really are a last resort for landing in moderate conditions - I wouldn't fancy shooting an ILS to minima on them in windy or gusty conditions. I do appreciate your confidence in us, though - it makes a welcome change!
