Is accepting the added risk of a more complex system worth it?
FADEC vs mags
EFIS  vs HSI
WAAS  vs GPS without corrections.

Bonus question: is a TSOed C129A receiver with Receiver Autonomous
Integrity Monitoring (RAIM) better than a 12 channel all in the sky
receiver?

BTW, CFS has been offering barro corrected GS on *all* approches for years,
without WAAS or a TSOed GPS.

Rob,

 

Patience Grasshopper!

 

                                                                                   

 

Risk vs cost vs capability.  Tots have drowned in 5-gal buckets, some solutions are to make the buckets illegal, print a warning on the bucket in 40 languages, keep'm empty or do nothing and let an adult assume the responsibility for thinking.  Safety is relative - pilots still can live to an old age.  200 years ago I couldn't outrun a Jaguar (unless Ford built it).  Now I have a car.  The Jaguar won't get me but speed and road rage might.  Risks shift.  We are not going to get out of here alive.

 

As my favorite philosopher, Dirty Harry, said, "A man's got to know his limitations."

 

FADEC vs Mags

 

FADEC is only complex within itself - it is simpler and more efficient for the operator.  It should help reduce human error and, thus help make the gene pool shallower.  I am so impressed with modern automobile engine management  - electronic fuel injection, mass airflow sensors, baro sensors, temperature sensors, exhaust gas sensors, diagnostic interfaces, etc. - all to make it work efficiently in any weather, at any altitude (reachable by car) and go 100,000 miles betwixt overhaul concerns.  But, I do want a 3 position switch on mine: Economy, Best Power and Race.

 

EFIS vs HSI

 

Huh?  Gee, I was happy with: Go that-a-way; It's down the road a bit; It'll take a while longer; Hang a left at the sign post. What more do you need than bearing, track, MSA and ETA?  If ya like pictures, a moving map will do.  Everything else is frosting unless you just gotta get there.

 

WAAS  vs GPS without corrections

 

I was a subscriber to GPS World when there were only 3 sats aloft.  The Fourier analyses, transformations and atmospheric corrections have gotten too sophisticated for me to keep up.  Anyway, I am always amazed at human cleverness.  It didn't take long for a non-government person to realize that DOD's signal dickering could be corrected by sending out a fix from a known location - thus, differential was born.  This gave rise to all sorts of applications, accurate surveying with signal corrections transmitted from the local FM station for a small fee.  The idea was very attractive to the Coast Guard and it wasn't long before coastal CG stations were transmitting differential signals.  Selective Availability was soon a joke.  Other applications, like cell phones transfers, are coordinated by the atomic clock data sent down to all cells.  Etc.  Etc.  

 

I had a Garmin 250 in my Lancair around 1997 thru 2000 and it frequently lost lock-on during steep turns.  So?  Didn't do steep turns navigating x-cntry (approaches not possible yet) in a cloud.  After all, LORAN was the first to go belly up in p-static and GPS was better even back then. 

 

Too bad receivers can't handle differential, it would be a great adjunct.  Hey, it's only software.

 

What ever happened to the TLS (Transponder Landing System)?

 

When are we going to go to "true" North?  Let's stop with 12th Century technology that only have to be close by 10 degrees.

 

......CFS has been offering barro corrected GS on *all* approches for years......

 

Yep, but avionics cannot cost more than 1/3 the value of the total airplane - otherwise, something is out of whack.