Page 18 - Volume 17 Number 10

With ICAO and the FAA making aviation more costly in general every year, and the coming of NextGen equipage requirements before 2020, the entire industry is feeling the pinch. There will be a number of older aircraft forced into salvage yards when Stage I and II aircraft are banned from other countries and in the US after December 31, 2015.Of specific concern (to me, anyway), there seems to have been a shift in basic training philosophies toward a greater reliance on automation, in both the general aviation and airline environments. I was shocked to have recently read a trade magazine article about “whether or not it was advisable to declare an emergency as a result of an autopilot failure.” I’m not suggesting that automation is a bad thing; it is, after all, an important tool that every pilot needs to understand and use appropriately. I occasionally hear stories from other pilots,16 • TWIN & TURBINEOCTOBER 2013