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Cessna has come a long way


seahawk09

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Hey all,

The other day I was reading my flying Magazine came across an Article saying that as of now the G1000 is standard in all Cessna 182's and 206's well this is going to be a nice upgrade for all cessna owners since before these glass cockpits came along anyone owning a Cessna would have to keep a eye on the gauges and the other on the horizion. but now with these panels installed many pilots will have less eye strain and more time to enjoy what's outside the aircraft. Reading about cessna'a history is amazing those planes play a major part in everyday avation it's seems that anywhere you look Cessna's are leading the way in avaition. I know that there new jet line will be a welcome part of avaition history for many years to come.

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Piper announced the same thing recently - it will now need a `substantial` order before steam guages will be offered in any new build planes. Yesterdays tomorrow is today, now... I think...;)

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What they said... ;)

Actually, Cessna dropped the steam cockpit a couple of years ago now. I'm actually going to miss it, old stick in the mud that I am! 8)

Ian P.

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What they said... ;)

Actually, Cessna dropped the steam cockpit a couple of years ago now. I'm actually going to miss it, old stick in the mud that I am! 8)

Ian P.

Here, Here!

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Why is my mind picture of a bunch of crusty old codgers in bath chairs, wearing baseball caps sittin' on the stoop...? :)

"Dem new-fangled TV things'll never catch on Jeb. You's know they'll never replace radio...and whats wrong with a bit of string stuck to the windshield?"

(please repeat fifteen times for genuine old codger effect, then shout loudly: "Kids? Pah!"

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  • Aerosoft
What they said... ;)

Actually, Cessna dropped the steam cockpit a couple of years ago now. I'm actually going to miss it, old stick in the mud that I am! 8)

Ian P.

The digital cockpit in the base FSX is pretty good. When I fly for fun (not a lot) I would always pick the G1000 versions of the aircrafts in FSX. Just makes my life a lot easier and more fun. As I HATE to crash in FS I also realize the G1000 makes my flights more successful.

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Why is my mind picture of a bunch of crusty old codgers in bath chairs, wearing baseball caps sittin' on the stoop...? :)

"Dem new-fangled TV things'll never catch on Jeb. You's know they'll never replace radio...and whats wrong with a bit of string stuck to the windshield?"

(please repeat fifteen times for genuine old codger effect, then shout loudly: "Kids? Pah!"

whahha :P:D spot on:P :lol:

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The digital cockpit in the base FSX is pretty good. When I fly for fun (not a lot) I would always pick the G1000 versions of the aircrafts in FSX. Just makes my life a lot easier and more fun. As I HATE to crash in FS I also realize the G1000 makes my flights more successful.

Being the old steam-driven stick-in-the-mud, I agree that the G1000 make life easier, but they also make it a lot more complicated because of the limited functionality of the default FSX gauges which are really nothing more than a digital representation of the data also supplied in gauge form. You can't really DO anything with the GThou, and in some cases (The Mooney) functionality of the aircraft is compromised - no a/p function in the VC. What I also find curious is how great the fps impact seems to be of presenting the same data in this way. In effect, we are `paying` more in fps for less, in terms of function.

When someone finally does a fully-functioning G1000, complete with weather, GPS flight plan adjustable and definable by the keypad, a representative integrated a/p and advanced transponder capabilities, then it will truly have arrived.

And this reflects pretty closely what it took in the real world too... :wink:

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I was talking to someone at another site recently, who found a commercial download of a G1000 that was designed for FS9, but worked in FSX, which had a lot more functionality than the default and seemed to have a lower frame rate overhead. They said they were working on an FSX update, but I now can't find the product or the thread we were discussing it on. :(

One of the reasons I dislike the modern glass cockpits is the fact that in a glance, they don't actually provide all the information a "steam" cockpit did. They provide a lot more navigation information (but not more than something like a decent Skymap or GNS GPS does - only larger), but to get to the engine information which was available in a glance in our steam-pannelled "new" C172SP at SAC, I would now have to change pages on the second display, then change back.

I prefer being able to glance sideways, thanks, without having to take my hands off the yoke and throttle when flying an accurate 3d flightpath through turbulent cloud. Out of preference, the one gauge I would really like back in FSX is the RXP Sandel Nav Display (Mathijs... Market opening! FSX Sandel gauges and Skymap GPSs! :lol:) which means I can keep all my "at a glance" engine information, etc. yet still have the improved situational awareness of modern nav displays.

Ian P.

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I actually got lost on the third leg of my first long solo cross country in a 172 in 1960. Fortunately a kindhearted FAA weather guy in Chadron Neb. found me and gave me a course to fly. :roll: I think that would probably be nearly impossible with the new glass cockpits and GPS systems. The aircraft had a VOR receiver (very primitive by comparison to what we are used to today) which was on the blink and the small town flight instructor ( a crop duster part time) hadn't taught me how to use it yet anyway.

Rich

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Snave is right on, the MS implementation of the G1000 (at least in the Mooney Bravo) is next to useless as I want to fly 700 mile legs in the plane at medium altitudes, and for that, I need access to an autopilot. I can trim out the vertical migrations, but after a few minutes the heading starts to wander. The good implementations of the Avidyne Entegra like the Columbia 400 and Cirrus SR22 from Eaglesoft give me a nice working S-Tec 55 autopilot along with the PFD/MFD.

GB

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I'll be honest... I used the keyboard shortcuts to activate the autopilot when I was doing the Hawaiian Checkout mission in the G1000 Mooney. It's the only time I've ever flown it - not a fan of the MS G1000 and not a fan of the Mooney!

I'll probably equip the steam cockpit version with 3rd party gauges at some point.

Similar to Rich's story, I was up flying with an instructor in a C152 about ten years ago - it was actually intended to be a practice for my GFT - when the visibility unexpectedly went from about 30NM to less than 10. Fortunately, we were talking to a Birmingham Approach controller at the time, even though we were clear of her airspace, and when I set up a 1000' orbit around a town to try and get a landmark (we hoped it was Warwick, our turning point. It wasn't, although I can't remember where it was now), she called us up and asked where we had intended to turn.

"Warwick."

"You missed it. Stand by. Try a heading of 030 for about five minutes and report the racecourse in sight. Is the visibility really that bad down there?"

Birmingham VFR approaches suddenly started landing with a slight tailwind (about 2Kts) on 15, rather than 33. We found Warwick and then tracked the NDB back to what was then Halfpenny Green (now Wolverhampton).

One interesting thing is that the particles in the air that caused the problem were actually sand being carried from the Sahara by an extremely high pressure zone... Which produced massive amounts of static electricity and would have played havoc with GPS signals!

Ian P.

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Ian, I had considered doing the same thing to give me autopilot capability, but then I thought," this is the newest FS yet, and I have to go back to FS98 style flying? Since I have two really nice airplanes with good glass and autopilots, why am I flying this lame Mooney?"

GB

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I just got back from picking up my new Cessna 182, :D (I traded in my trusty old 182), :( and must say that the new G1000 glass cockpit makes Navigation alot more like flying the heavys but the ability to fly by the seat of your pants is still there. The basic information is still the same just presented in a differant way! :)

I did cheat a little though, :roll: I purchased the G1000 training program from the Garmin website for less then $10US. After reading the manual and playing on the computer with the training software (about 6 hours over 3 days) I felt good enough to go pickup the plane. The dealer and I went up for a check and fam ride and he pointed out a few functions of the G1000 that aren't covered in the basic manual and then I was on my way home. 8)

After a 3 hour flight back to the home airport, I must say the new cockpit is very nice and after I get used to all of the extra functions I'm sure that I will come to love it. :)

All this is coming from an "old codger" who was dead set on the old steam cockpit. Just goes to show ya that we all can change! :wink:

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