Pilots: do you think it's important for me to choose a flight school that has glass-cockpit simulators?

Question

I'm looking at two flight schools. One has sims with glass cockpits. The other does not. Do you think this should be the most important factor in deciding which one to attend?

Both of them cost approximately the same, and both are located on the same field, so cost and commute time are not factors.

Answer 1

Yes, depending on what u would like to do this could be very important.  Most modern aircraft are equipped with glass cockpits.  U would rather be over capable than under

Answer 2

a glass cockpit isnt all its cracked up to be. I would suggest learning on the steam gauges cuz more than likely, when you get your first job, you will be flying IMC on steam gauges. Once you learn the steam gauges, transferring your knowledge over to a glass panel cockpit is a piece of cake. This should not be a deciding factor on which school to choose. Maybe you should base your decision one what others have to say about each school. How is the training program at each school. How good of quality are the instructors? Do they have a high turn over rate with flight instructors-big thing for me cuz i hated the fact that i had 6 different instructors throughout my training, it really slowed me down. and TIME IS MONEY. How many aircraft-student ratio?  those are the kind of things you should base your decision on.. Whether you fly with glass or not will not affect your training, only the price.

Answer 3

My personal opinion is that everyone should start out in gliders, then transition to tailwheel airplanes. That will give you superior flying skills and is also a tremendous amount of fun. After that, you'll have plenty of time to get training in "glass cockpit" simulators for your instrument rating.  I guarantee if you start out in such a school, it will be stressful, a lot less fun, and you'll become a button pusher glued to the CRT, "crippled" for life, instead of a competent flyer with good basic aircraft handling skills who knows how to look out the window. Don't be in such a hurry to jump into the "latest and greatest", have some fun and build solid flying skills first. That's my humble opinion.

Answer 4

Glass cockpits are nice, and enhance situational awareness, but at the cost of not allowing the student to perfect his/her scan for IFR flight.

I would recommend doing the instrument rating in an aircraft with steam guages, and doing the commerical in a glass cockpit. You will find the transfer from steam to glass is quite natural and easy, but the reverse is not true, because if you have not learned a scan for steam guages, you will have a much harder time trying to learn because of the negative transfer, as glass cockpits remove alot of the procedures from steam guage IFR flying, such as tune and ID a fix, primary and supporting insturments, parital panel ifr flying.

Answer 5

To answer your question, it shouldn't really matter. Most of the flying you do will not entail glass cockpits but good old flight skills and an IFR panel.

Choose wisely because it is more than the glitz of glass cockpits that will live with you long after you have invested your hard earned dough in a flying career.

Answer 6

If you plan on buying or renting a glass cockpit plane, then yes.

If it's not something you see your self doing in the near future... it couldn't hurt.

If the cost is the same then look into other factors like availability of flight time and instructor time. I worked with nothing but standard analog cockpits and I have only seen one glass cockpit in Vegas that isn't flown by a pilot for a company or by someone with a salary over a million a year haha.

Good luck and god speed

Answer 7

No not really but the glass cockpit means newer equipment. Newer equipment is nice to fly just like driving a new car.

How many aircraft do they have? That is something to think about because everyone is going to want to rent the glass cockpit(because it is new) and may not be available when you want to fly where as the older and hopefully in good condition simulator will not be as popular and more available for your schedule.

Some will say it is the same and others will say it is different. My opinion is that the old "steam gauges" may be a little more difficult to fly only because the information isn't presented in one place so your scan has to be a little faster as opposed to the "glass cockpit" where all the information is right there in one location making it easier. Just my 2 cents. Good question.