Who likes "glass cockpits"?

[PRB]

Well, in general, I prefer “steam gauges” and the older, more “experienced” planes that they can be found within. Then there is the exception that makes the rule… These two planes, the Epic LT and the Quest Kodiak (Lionheart Creations), are so beautifully done that you cannot help liking them. And they are such a blast to fly! And so many fun things to play with in the cockpit, too! Thanks, Bill!
:ernae:

[Boomer]

Im with you... I was never really into glass pits until the Kodiak.

[Bjoern]

Funnily enough, I don't like the G1000, but I'll take an Airbus, 737NG, CRJ, ERJ and whatever airliner with glass gauges any day!

[JIMJAM]

I love them but they do not like my mid range computer. I can fly all the A2A,PMDG ect with high settings no problems. But the Eaglesoft planes, some of the newer Iris really put a hurting on my computer. I bougt the Epic and cannot even fly it. Bad stutters. The Kodiak was getting great performance reviews even being compared to Carenado's fps freindly planes so I bought it a few days ago. I get bad fps and overall slowdowns compared to the heavies like the PMDG 747. I tried the lower rez versions but see no difference.My setup just does not like most displays or huds.
The Kodiak will be my last till I get a new system.
But I am old school and like round gauges and thumping them from time to time. Giving a display a good smack will liabe to get you tossed out of the plane.

[hobofat]

Despite having grown up with computers, I find the old round gauges easier to use then the G1000. I do like the vast array of flight information available on the MFD and find it quite valuable when virtually flying, but my approaches are just terrible with the glass cockpit. I think it might be the fact that with the round gauges you don't even have to look at the numbers to know you speed/descent rate, as your mind remembers the placement of the needles, so I find my reaction times are quicker with round gauges.

But I do agree that Bill did a great job on the Kodiak display, and I enjoy the F1 Cessna Mustang glass display as well.

[lifejogger]

The problem I have with glass panels is that I can't read the numbers very well (old eyes i guess). I have to agree with hobofat you can just glance at the round gauges get most if the info you need.

[jdhaenens]

HeHeHe... I run a steam plant (among other things) and we're almost all digital. I have some REAL steam gauges!

[Lionheart]

Hey guys,


Glass panels are a different world. I learned to work with them though, and now I read them as fast as regular steam gauges.

The key is to look at the exact point of where the info is you are looking for instead of looking at the entire gauge. With that, if you want your air speed, you look at that little box that has your airspeed readout at. Not the entire tall box, but the small rectangle that has your exact speed.

If you want Altitude, you look at the small rectangle that has your 'exact' Altitude reading, (digitals, not numbers, but then you have numbers on a steam gauge too, but the needle is traveling in a circle instead of up and down a strip of numbers, linear instead of radial, straight instead of a circle).

The center acts as an artificial horizon, so that is easily gathered, especially since it takes the entire screen background.

Then, note that your radios are now located in this same screen, and now are simply a couple of knobs, couple of buttons, and one, single bar accross the top of the screen that show you where your freq settings are at. Too easy on that one.

Then, (my most important one) is the compass rose (lower center) which has your heading, CRS needle, GPS NAV data (headings, vectors, just like your regular every day HSI and VOR gauges) all in one.

So, for me, in a flight, needing to know where I am at, I look at the compass rose (CDI). For airspeed, the small black rectangle on the left. Altitude is the small black rectangle on the right, vertical speed (VSI) is the black arrow usually parked by the Altitude small black rectangle, and radios on the radio bar.

Takes about an hour to adopt it, and after several flights, its just like steam gauges, at least for me it was.





But..... For some, these gauges do not work well. I have no idea why they dont. I have made them as simple as possible. Here is a retrospect on the issue or 'mystery'.

Steam Panel; all gauges are seperate, radial instead of digital or linear.

Screen panel; all gauges are combined into 2 screens. All gauges are in one screen, so you could say, the gauges are in 'one' screen, as the GPS lives in its own screen. So now, you have the same gauges, but in digital or linear formats, and same number of codes, but in one gauge format or 'grouping' instead of say 5 or 12.

A wierd thing. It should run faster as its in one code. But it runs slower on 'some' computers and none of us can figure out why. I can get the MFD now to run faster then my PFD, but its still a mystery as it should be running ultra fast.



So there it is. :d The wild world of screen systems, the panels of the future, now locating themselves in so many of our modern planes. I myself like them all, from a modern glass panel system, to both modern and vintage steam gauges, to vintage German gauges, circa 1930's. They all have their 'intrigue' and values.

Some like a Speedometer on a 57 Chevy far better then a Speedo in a Mazda sport coupe. Some like reading a map rather then going through the menus of a GPS screen.

I can certainly say, its much easier to make steam gauges then a Garmin, lololol... Goodness!!!!

:kilroy:

<--- overladen with gray eyebrows now

[cheezyflier]

i love the glass panel, i am totally hooked. once i began to understand it, it became sooo easy for me all around.
funny thing to me is, it runs just fine on my computer, and i prolly have the crappiest system of anyone on this board. honestly, i don't know why my sim works as well as it does. it has absolutely no right to run this well.
i haven't run a single tweak. what can i say? God loves me :d

[gajit]

Hate them in tiger moffs :ernae:

[spotlope]

I love 'em. Don't have the Kodiak, but I enjoy the heck out of the Epic LT -- and it runs great on my mid-range system. I must have found some sort of sweet spot, in fact, 'cause a lot of planes that people bellyache about run just fine on my rig.

[cheezyflier]

Hate them in tiger moffs :ernae:

that would certainly be an unusual place to see one :monkies:

[SkippyBing]

The main problem I found using a digital panel in a real aircraft was that because I knew the 'exact' height i.e. 2995' I kept chasing the numbers to get 3000' whereas with an analogue dial I probably wouldn't notice the slight misalignment of the needle so I'd get on with looking out the window and flying smoothly.

[Lionheart]

The main problem I found using a digital panel in a real aircraft was that because I knew the 'exact' height i.e. 2995' I kept chasing the numbers to get 3000' whereas with an analogue dial I probably wouldn't notice the slight misalignment of the needle so I'd get on with looking out the window and flying smoothly.

Hey Skippy,


I can see your point there. But probably also why they included that vertical strip as well, just for seeing the 'within 500 feet' zone. Same with airspeed.


Bill

[SkippyBing]

Bill,

You're probably right, I've only had the one real flight in a glass cockpit so I didn't have a chance to unlearn old habits!

Skippy

[PRB]

I think one reason I’ve never liked digital displays in FS is that I’ve seen the real ones, and no FS version has ever come close. Ever see what the displays in an FA-18 really look like? The characters and symbols aren’t just sharp; they’re insanely sharp and clear. The reason is that the display hardware is stroke, not raster, and the sharpness they have is impossible to duplicate on a raster monitor. Secondly, in order to make the characters readable, FS displays have to have huge characters and symbols, in comparison to the real ones, to the point that they look “cheesy.” Even the awesome VRS F/A-18E/F for FS9 still suffers from this, a little... In the past few years, the new digital computer monitors, allowing higher resolutions, are making realistic “glass cockpit” displays possible. The best example I’ve seen so far are these two Lionheart Creation planes!

P.S. I think the very latest display hardware in the Super Hornet is LCD/Plasma, or something like that. Just like the latest stuff we buy for our PCs... Not 100% sure about that, though... Back in the 1990s, I was surprised when I first looked into an F-16 cockpit, and found the displays in that ship were cheezy looking raster displays! Maybe one reason the F-16 was so inexpensive, relatively. (Yes, we had both FA-18s and F-16s in our navy squadron in 1995. Guess which one it was... :d)

[Bjoern]

Every glass 'pit was based on raster displays until the advent of the LCD. Without fairly cheap, light, small and uncomplicated LCDs, flight information suites like the G1000 in a C-172 wouldn't be possible.

[jimjones]

I like glass pits except that when in shadow they are too dark. Maybe all planes are not that way but it seems all I have work that way. In reality glass pits should be the same brightness whether in shadow or not.

[cheezyflier]

Every glass 'pit was based on raster displays until the advent of the LCD. Without fairly cheap, light, small and uncomplicated LCDs, flight information suites like the G1000 in a C-172 wouldn't be possible.

somehow, i wish carenado would grasp the concept and put them into some of their cessnas. i have a hard time believing that if the coast guard did own a 182, that they would get it with the cheapie auto pilot, even though they paid for extended range tanks? in a situation like that, to me the glass panel only makes sense.

[PRB]

Every glass 'pit was based on raster displays until the advent of the LCD. Without fairly cheap, light, small and uncomplicated LCDs, flight information suites like the G1000 in a C-172 wouldn't be possible.

Well, maybe most, and probably all light civilian airplanes always used raster displays, but many military planes use stroke type displays. The older FA-18C displays actually use both. Raster to display video, such as from air-to-ground radar and FLIR, but all the symbols, characters, letters, and numbers, etc., are “drawn” individually by the stroke method, not raster. The current Hornet’s displays are LCD. My point was that after seeing how FS sims are unable to come close to duplicating this look, I was “spoiled”. But FS planes are getting better…

[brettt777]

As someone who puts cockpits and avionics together for a living (L-39 cockpits to be exact) I was thinking about this very thing at work today as I was assembling and installing a new instrument panel and it struck me as quite funny how we call the new lcd displays a "glass cockpit" when in fact, there is no glass in them at all. Actualy the term would be more appropriate for the old "steam gauges" (where's the steam?) as most of them actualy have a glass face on them.

[viking3]

I don't have Bill's aircraft so I don't know if his display has airspeed and V/S trend bars, but on the A320 that is usually what the pilot monitors over the digital readouts to maintain speed and altitude. If the ball is centred and the trends are zero you are straight, level and on speed. Not that they handfly it much.
I myself like both the old and the new. There is something mighty impressive about a 747-200 cockpit with all those dials, gauges, and switches, especially at night with everything lit up. On the other hand the sleek modern cockpits with sidesticks and displays are about simplifying the display to what the pilot needs at that time and data integration. Very cool in it's own way.

Regards, Rob:ernae: