Scanning...

This is for those of you whom are not pilots.

When we are flying in the clouds, we fly by referencing our instruments. We have have several instruments, most of which are broken into 3 categories: Control, Performance, and information.

An instrument that tells us the relative pitch would be in the control group, while one that tells us our engine power output would be performance. Generally if you think one instrument would tell us something relative to what the airplane is doing, (up, down, left,right) you can think of that as a control instrument. Some of these instruments change depending on what we are doing. When we climb, we try to climb at a profile speed. At low altitude, my Climb speed is 200kts. This means i am going to use my airspeed indicator to tell me how to control the airplane. (Pitch up for slower, pitch down to go faster) This is my control instrument in this case. Because i am flying at a set airspeed, i measure my performance from two other instruments. My Attitude or pitch will giver me a reference, 10 deg. up should give me 200kts. If it does not i need more power, and my rate of climb should be 2,500 feet per minute. Now i need to adjust my power selection to maintain my pitch and vertical speed. These instruments are now how i judge my performance. In a climb, my airspeed controls what i do with the Yoke, or control of the aircraft, the other instruments tell me what i need to do with the engines or performance. The other instruments like fuel flow etc. are strictly for my information.

If it seems like a lot of information, it is. So as pilots we develop an instrument scan. Much in the same way as a car driver. When driving your car, you may fall into a routine that you follow when looking around. You may go from looking ahead to your speedometer, to the tachometer, then your rear and side view mirrors and then back to the front. A pilots scan is similar. In older aircraft the Scan was divided into a "6 Pack" of instruments. they were arranged in a 3x2 array (3 across, 2 down) It looked like you were looking at a 6 pack of soda from the top down. People came up with all sorts of scan patters, called different names, 2T's, V's etc. This meant you might Start at the top left, move to bottom middle, over to top right, then bottom right, top middle, bottom left etc. This pattern made sure that you didn't omit anything. What good would it be to maintain your speed and heading if you had inadvertently rolled upside down, or descended 2,000 feet? This scan is known as Basic Instrument flying. At this point we know what the airplane is doing, but we don't know where we are. We have an instrument called an HSI. It has a long name that basically means, tells us where we are relative to a navigation point or facility. This HSI is normally incorporated with the instrument that tells us the direction we are flying.

In the 1900D you quickly learned a different type of scan. I will call this one a Primary Scan, and Perhipial Scan. the primary scan is the top and bottom center instruments. From these two instruments you can tell your pitch, bank, direction and HSI information. Your Perhipial scan covers speed, altitude, vertical speed etc. In the picture below, the Primary scan area is in clear detail. The perhipial scan is blurry, but visable, and the other stuff that you look at every minute or so is black and white.

The reason for this was two fold. The 1900 is fast. If you wanted to look at each instrument repeatedly, you would gain a massive migraine in no time. When you are going 300mph, just a small change in pitch results in a large change in altitude. Also, your perhipial vision is VERY sensitive to change. While you were not looking at your altimeter, you could see the needle start to move immediately, and make a change. Same with airspeed, vertical speed. Also, the human eye has an easier time viewing in the vertical axis for focused vision, horizontal for perhipial vision. The pitch and heading must be very accurate, so primarily we look at those, but we see all the others in our perhipial vision. This is seeing the "bigger" picture. By scanning in this manner, we could slow down, turn, descend and join an airway with relative ease. In the basic scan, you would have to spend time dedicated to looking at each individual instrument, and it would be hard.

The new airplane is different. Here is a picture illustrating the same information in the same scan.

The Primary difference is that the altitude, airspeed and vertical speed are no longer round gauges. They are now read like a measuring tape. They give a digital read out of each. This means that you actually have to "read" each instrument I have applied the Primary/Perhipial scan that i used in the 1900D to the image. If you enlarge it, you will see that it is hard to see the airspeed and altitude. Normally i would use the movement of a need to draw my attention to the gauge. I can't do this in the new airplane, because you don't see the movement of a number changing. The best reference i can make to this is clocks. If you have been using an old analog clock with hands, you can just glance at it, and have a close idea of what time it is. If you move to a digital clock, you can't do that. You actually have to read it. the digital version is more accurate, but slower to read. Now I MUST look at every instrument, rather than focus on my primary instruments, and watch for changes in the others.

We did our first sim on motion today, and i will admit i was a surprised. I though my strong scan would give me an advantage, but found it more difficult. Coupled with the unfamiliar location of each read out, i found myself searching for information. My turns, stalls and maneuvers were "OK" i would have been TOTALLY disgusted with myself in the 1900 though. I know that this will develop with time, but i was expecting a faster and easier transition. Those that may be entering training right now, i recommend getting some time in a glass airplane. any advantage you can earn is a step up.

Aside from that, the new profiles, call outs and, well, everything else, is going quite well. It's fun to learn a new airplane. Thanks for reading... I'll have more pictures up before long.