Diamond Twin-star

[ali1986]

hello

I was just wondering what people are doing about their IR's, because of the whole Daimond thing.

I plan to go to stapleford after my atpl's and they are increasing the cost of training on theirs but are also offering training on the Piper Seneca.

So i was just wanting to know if people are continuing to train on the diamonds OR are they doing it on the sencas instead or anything.

[Mikehotel152]

I think the Seneca is £500 cheaper than the Twinstar over the course of the entire IR at Stapleford.

Pass rates are far higher on the Twinstar.

The cost of a partial or failed IR Skills Test is more than £500...

[ali1986]

oh right so its not as bad as i thought

[cirruscrystal]

Garmin - Will take you 5-10 hours to get used to glass cockpit is the only down side (even with training software etc..)

Once you are tuned into Garmin your life will be MUCH easier on the Twinstar, from my experience

[WIKI44]

Transition period from analogue to glass

I don't think it should take quite as much as 5-10 hours to transtion to a glass enviornment. You can easily reduce transition periods by

1. using software
2. thoroughly reading the manuals
3. back seating
4. sitting in the a/c on te ground and running thorugh drills

It won't take you more than 2-3 hours to become comfortable enough. Scan is easier. Cockpit layout is much less cluttered and buttons/knobs are much easier to reach. Plus all the aircraft will have a uniform layout, as opposed to two different senecas which almost invarable have different nav/com, autopilot etc. equipment inside.

[cirruscrystal]

You are right - software and training aids all help with transition. i used mockups and sims but even so there is a minimum of 5 hours for anybody to transition between analogue and glass, more normally 10 hours.

Trend information is very hard to pickup initially and even after familiar still hard to identify trends which one takes for granted with analogue instruments. There is a well known school of thought that analogue instrumentation is in fact far better at presenting data to a pilot. There is a middle ground i think as you say it is a far less cluttered setup and also a more compact scan can be done with glass.

One thing you will notice is that your brain tries to process numerical information presented by the altimeter and TAS which is not very helpful when instrument flying.

[ali1986]

So are more people going glass or are they staying with the analogue?

If so why?

[cavortingcheetah]

Not having flown for a long time, had to do a full ATPL/IR flight test in South Africa earlier this year. Although I had plenty of glass experience I decided to do the training and test on a Twin Commanche rather that a Twin Star and am glad I did. It would have taken longer to get used to a different glass setup than it did to go back to an analogue.
However, if you are training up for a professional licence, you are presumably looking at an airline simulator check somewhere either quite soon or down the line. I don't know what most airlines use as sims these days for checks, analogue or glass, but I think that if I had that particular decision to make, between the two cockpit systems, I would tend to be more motivated by what a likely airline company was going to stick me in to for their assessment ride.
I suspect that it is as difficult, having trained on one system to adapt to the other, although the analogue will always, to some extent, stay with us because of the basic training. Also suspect that in Europe, most sim checks will be done in either a full glass cockpit or a mixed one, where some glass experience would be useful.
If the pass rate is higher in the Twin Star then surely the dice are loaded in its favour over something like a Seneca? I do remember as well, from SA, that a lot of system knowledge had to be absorbed for the Twin Star. It is a very different aircraft than that on which anyone may have done their basic training but as has been pointed out, much of this transitional difficulty can be resolved by pre training flight book work and back seating, which is an invaluable aid.
Of course, another point to watch out for in all of this expensive decision making is how long Twin Stars will still be in operation, given the company's present financial difficulties.

[ali1986]

hello

Did you prefer the Glass or analogue config?
as you say you 've had plenty of glass experience

[cavortingcheetah]

Couldn't really call that one, to be honest. Think it rather boils down to the whole aircraft. The Do 328 might be more amusing to fly in Europe than an HS 748 but I'd much rather go smashing about the African bush in the Vomit Comet.

[A and C]

Basic IF flying

Using the twinstar for your basic trainning is just a very good way to store up problems for the future and should be avoided.

Most of you will go on to fly airliners with glass cockpits and spend most of your time following the magenta line however what happens when the FMC quits?

You will find that in this situation the aircraft will have to be reverted to glass version of the clockwork cockpit. If you do not have the basic skills to fly the aircraft in this condition you simply should not be sitting in the seat.

A friend of mine who is a Captain for a charter airline had an FMC failure and the newish FO instantly made a "pan pan pan" call to ATC because of the failure of in the FO's words the "total navigation failure" (the Captain contnued the SID using the "clockwork").

This abismal performance is indicative of the very low basic skill levels that using a glass cockpit gives the student, to put this in simple terms if you cant fly the aircraft using the "clockwork" you should not be flying the "glass".

As to the exam pass rate it would seem that a lower standard of student can get a pass with the glass but have you considered that this fact may be lulling you into a much more expencive hole when due to lack of basic IF flying skills you fail a jet type rating.

[ali1986]

yes, but surely one day you are going to have to learn how to use glass cockpits wouldn't it be cheaper to learn now rather than when you get to your (expensive) type rating. And wouldnt you be taught how to use the cockpit with certain instument failures during your training. And isnt 'total' instrument failure quite rare?

[Finn47]

Apparently not, as the NTSB now wants changes even to A320 glass display systems which have failed 49 times in recent years:

Aero-News Network: The Aviation and Aerospace World's Daily/Real-Time News and Information Service

[Cobalt]

I think the pass rates difference between Seneca and Twin Star are down more to handling than to the avionics fit - the Seneca is quite a handful, you need to look after the engines a lot more, engine failures drills are more work etc.

Yes, with a wide G1000 horizon you are less likely to end up in a turn without noticing, and there are fewer tasks where you have to look at the other side of the cockpit so you are "off scan" less often.

I would guess that a G1000 seneca would have pass rates closer to the classic seneca than to the TwinStar.

[A and C]

ali1986

This issue is not about total instrument failure, this is about loss off the FMC. this will result in the loss of the map function and so the crew being forced to return to the glass reprisentation of "clockwork dials".

This requires a good mental picture of the aircrafts positon in space and the ability to switch quickly to navigation without the big map. What I have seen from graduates of the magenta line kindergarden is a state of panic when the FMC has a bit of a brainfart, the result is the FO going head down pressing buttons in an attempt to get the FMC back rather that containing the situation by reverting to conventional navigation and then trying to get the FMC back.

All this usualy happens on the SID or STAR when without quick action the aircraft can very soon stray off track. Add to this high ground and a non-radar enviroment and you have all the makings of a CFIT.

As for doing trainning on "basic" instrument flying during a jet type rating this is a non-starter, these courses assume that you have a good level of basic insrument flying and if you can't hack it you will be out on your ear!

Doing the IR on a glass aircaft will not equipe you with the basic tools of the trade and you will be a worse pilot for it.

[Keygrip]

Magenta line

I recall, many years ago, conducting what is now called an SEP renewal for a 757 skipper who was on layover in USA.

I gave him a 'half mill' chart and asked for a VFR cross country to a nearby airfield. He elected to "busk it" (no planning).

On the downwind leg from the departure airfield he gave me the aircraft back - admitting that he "hadn't a clue" and without his magenta line and glass flight panel he was completely stuffed.

Gave him quite an uncomfortable wake up call, he said.

[ali1986]

i find it hard to imagine that he had no idea what to do at all.

[Lost man standing]

I'd like to confirm these ideas from the other side of the interview desk.

Some people have given very good reasons that I prefer to see training in a PA-34 (or PA-44, or a Be76) to DA42 in an applicant's logbook. If you can do it the hard way we all know you can do it the easy way, but doing it the easy way proves nothing about your ability to do it the hard way.

[ali1986]

So if you had 2 applicants would you be more inclined to choose the person who had PA-34 or PA-44 on his logbook rather than the person with the DA-42 in there?

I wonder what the flight schools think about that.

[Keygrip]

ali1968, you don't need to imagine - just trust me, I was there - he abandoned.

his handling of a C172 which he hadn't flown for years and years was similar to what I would expect if I tried his 757.

Probably why both JAA and FAA require flight reviews and/or recency.