Went from a 727 to a G1000 cockpit and man what a difference

I worked on old school steam gauge planes for like 8 years. Last spring I jumped to a shop that does mostly Cirrus and Cessna glass cockpits. The before and after is night and day. Troubleshooting a bad air data computer used to take me half a shift with test equipment. Now I plug in the G1000 and get a fault code in 5 minutes. The downside is the training - took me 6 months to really get comfortable with the Garmin software. Anyone else struggle with the switch from analog to digital or was it just me?

3 comments

3 Comments

paige16611d ago

Bro that transition is brutal for sure. Took me ages to stop reaching for the steam gauge habits when I first got into glass cockpits. The fault codes are a lifesaver though once you get past the learning curve.

grace_knight1911d ago

Have you found the fault codes actually help you catch stuff faster than the old gauges, or is it more of a crutch at first?

emma_baker6110d ago

Wait, you're telling me there are mechanics out there who actually miss spending half a shift trying to figure out which steam gauge is lying to them? I swear the first time I plugged into a G1000 and it handed me a fault code I felt like I was cheating at a video game. But yeah, the training is rough - I spent two weeks trying to turn the G1000 off by pulling a breaker because my muscle memory was that stuck in the past.