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The last, but by no means the least, of the three flight management skills needed for
mastery of the glass cockpit aircraft is risk management. There is no question that the
enhanced situational awareness and automation capabilities offered by a glass cockpit
airplane can vastly expand its safety and utility, especially for personal transportation
use. At the same time, there is some risk that lighter workloads could lead to the cliché of
"fat-dumb-and-happy" complacency. Just remember that any glass cockpit pilot
tempted to relax into a passenger-in-command role is likely to find some very sharp
corners in all this cutting edge technology. As with any piece of glass, you must always
handle it with care.
It is especially important to recognize that there are limits to what the systems in any
light general aviation aircraft can do. To help pilots remember this point, some Avidyne
equipped aircraft now offer a risk management checklist page that the pilot must acknowledge
before continuing to program the system. Whether or not your aircraft is so equipped,
just remember that being pilot-in-command always requires sound aeronautical decision-making
(ADM), and that it sometimes means saying "no" to a flight you really want to take.
Here's a recent personal example, using the PAVE risk identification checklist:
- Pilot(s): On a recent winter evening, I planned a night
cross-country flight with a fellow G1000 instructor. Both of us are night current,
instrument current, and fully proficient in use of the G1000 systems.
- Aircraft: The aircraft was a G1000 equipped, single engine
airplane with the full weather datalink package installed.
- enVironment: Weather at the proposed time of departure was
still VFR, but visibly deteriorating to marginal VFR and forecast to be IFR approximately
two hours after completion of the trip, which was along a well-known route to a familiar
airport. Temperatures aloft for the proposed altitude (which would put us in the clouds)
were just above freezing. The intended route of flight included short segments over
mountainous terrain.
- External pressures: We really, really, really wanted to fly!
After watching the ceiling and visibility decline noticeably during the preflight inspection,
we quickly lost faith in the forecast. Despite the proficiency of the pilots and the
capability of the aircraft systems, the two of us reluctantly concluded that the risk posed
by a night flight over mountains in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) with possible
icing was well beyond the limitations of a light single-engine airplane -- and we lived to fly another day.
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