Risk management is the last of the three flight management skills needed for mastery of the glass flight deck aircraft. The enhanced situational awareness and automation capabilities offered by a glass flight deck airplane vastly expand its safety and utility, especially for personal transportation use. At the same time, there is some risk that lighter workloads could lead to complacency.
Humans are characteristically poor monitors of automated systems: when asked to passively monitor an automated system for faults, abnormalities, or other infrequent events, humans perform poorly, and the more reliable the system, the poorer the human performance. It is a paradox of automation that technically advanced avionics can both increase and decrease pilot awareness.
It is important to remember that electronic flight displays do not replace basic flight knowledge and skills—they are a tool for improving flight safety. Risk increases when the pilot believes the gadgets will compensate for lack of skill and knowledge, and when the pilot fails to monitor the systems. By failing to monitor the systems and check the results of the processes, the pilot becomes detached from the aircraft operation and slides into the complacent role of passenger in command. Complacency led to tragedy in a 1999 accident in Colombia, where a multi-engine aircraft struck the face of the Andes Mountains after the crew entered a waypoint into the FMS incorrectly by one degree, resulting in a flightpath 60 NM off their intended course; they had all the tools to manage and monitor their flight, but instead allowed the automation to fly and manage itself. By failing to evaluate each turn made at the direction of automation, the pilots maximized risk instead of minimizing it.
For the GA pilot transitioning to automated systems, all human activity involving technical devices entails some element of risk; knowledge, experience, and mission requirements tilt the odds in favor of safe and successful flights. The advanced avionics aircraft offers many new capabilities and simplifies the basic flying tasks, but only if the pilot is properly trained and all the equipment is working as advertised.
