The FAA decided a while back that "distractions" are a factor in accidents, especially IFR accidents, and added them to the Practical Test Standards guide. The FAA also recently added use of equipment to the PTS including glass cockpits, use of the standby instruments for a non-precision approach, GPS approaches and autopilot use that applicants for the IFR rating must demonstrate on the check ride.

This is all good because we have undergone a major change in the way some essential information for flying IFR is presented in the cockpit. To say that a change in IFR instrumentation can be a distraction is, to some, a stretch, and to others it is a reality. If a pilot is properly trained in the use of the instrumentation, whatever form it may take, then there should be no problem. But it is also safe to say that when a pilot is up to his ears in alligators on a dark and stormy night, the proper reaction to indications of a recently learned system might be elusive.

Do you know who Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper were? They were three of many rock-n-roll musicians who have been killed in general aviation airplanes. What does that have to do with this subject? In the CAB (which preceded the NTSB) report on the February 3, 1959 Bonanza crash that killed them, a contributing factor to the accident was found to be "the pilot's unfamiliarity with the instrument which determines the attitude of the aircraft." It was also noted that the directional gyro was caged which could have added to the pilot's confusion.

The pilot was 21 years old and had flunked an instrument rating flight test nine months before the accident. It was a dark, snowy and stormy night, with little visual reference, and control of the airplane was lost soon after takeoff. If you want to read all about it, go to Google and type in "The Day the Music Died."

The Sperry attitude gyro in the airplane did have a somewhat different presentation of attitude and, as I remember, it was implicated in some other accidents, one of which involved a pilot with a lot of experience. There was the suggestion that a pilot accustomed to the standard artificial horizon of the day might reverse sense the presentation on this one. That, to me, was a stretch, but it is what the CAB said in its accident report.