Sweeping second hand Vs Digital (IFR)

[Walker]

Just a quick poll if in a training environment would it be better to have an old school sweeping hand clock vs the newer Devtron style digital units?
(panel mounted not watches)

[200hr Wonder]

As a line pilot... I use my cell phone.... for off and on times that is about it.

[KK7]

I just have to ask... why does it make any difference? It's a clock, it counts, that's all you need, no?

[iflyforpie]

I prefer metric time...

[DHCdriver]

I guess I'm old school, I like the second hand.

[Beefitarian]

I just have to ask... why does it make any difference? It's a clock, it counts, that's all you need, no?

+1 for I'm good with either as long as it can mesure 2 minutes accurately.

[PanEuropean]

I am going to assume that when you said "in a training environment", you were referring to pilots who are in training for a pilot licence or a rating (i.e. instrument rating), rather than pilots going through a type rating course.

For folks who are training for a pilot licence or instrument rating, I think you want to keep the 'work environment' as simple as possible. It's really, really easy to learn how to operate a conventional chronometer that has hour, minute and second hands on it. Typically such a chronometer has one button, and the operating sequence for the button is start, stop, reset to zero. If you keep on pushing that one button, it continues to work through that sequence of three actions. So, the "learning curve" for that piece of equipment is pretty darn easy. One button, three possible actions. It's safe to assume that the student already is familiar with how to interpret the position of the hands.

Fancy devices, like the Davtron clock, offer an endless number of features, but not all of those features are benefits. When the poor student is working at 100% capacity trying to figure out if they should turn left or right when they hit the beacon, the last thing they need is additional cognitive demands placed on them, such as "What the heck is the clock indicating now? Current time, GMT, flight time, or elapsed time" or "Is the clock in the correct mode to operate as a timer - and which of the four buttons and switches do I press to make it start timing?"

For those reasons, I think that a nice, simple conventional clock (chronometer) with a sweep second hand is the best choice for a training environment. Once the student moves on to flying A380s and has a good 8 to 10 hours to go before the landing to figure out how to set the clock up, you can give them a more complex timekeeping instrument.

Michael

[Hedley]

Digital, with a catch: it must have one button to push, to stop, zero and restart the elapsed timer.

If it requires more than one button push to stop/zero/restart the elapsed, it's not a good choice, IMHO, as described above. Finger trouble under load will ensure errors if the interface sucks (ie more than one button push required). With that inferior design, a sweep second hand starts to look better.

Note that the KR87 - the most expensive timer in the world - got it right!

[padre12]

Hedley beat me to the punch: I always use the timer on the KR87 ADF... (since I'm probably flying a GPS overlay anyways... )

the padre...

[Hedley]

That's the only thing that pisses me off about GPS - people won't install KR87 ADF's into their panels any more, and I won't have a timer.

[Doc]

I can't use a digital watch. ATC gives me traffic at "3 O'clock" how do I know where to look?
My GPS has a clock. My truck has a clock. My cell phone has a clock. My motorcycle has a clock. I have a Citizen, a Timex, a Heuer and a Rolex. I'm still always late on my approach times. Lets ban stand alone NDB approaches. All in favour... Tick Tock...

[Hedley]

Lets ban stand alone NDB approaches

Nah - we only need to ban them, to runways less than 10,000 feet long