Hit 500 hours on the same Garmin G1000 trainer and it felt like a waste

I just logged my 500th hour on the Garmin G1000 trainer at our shop in Phoenix, and it hit me that I know this system better than my own car. The weird part is, after all that time, I still find new bugs in the sim that never show up on the line. Has anyone else put that much time into a trainer only to find it doesn't match real world faults?

2 comments

2 Comments

shane_wilson5h ago

Totally get that feeling. Used to think a trainer hour was a real world hour, no question. Then we had a bleed air fault that the sim would trip every single time, but in the actual jet it only showed up during a specific climb profile in humid weather. The trainer taught the procedure, but it never taught you to actually listen for the pack switchover. Makes you wonder what else it's getting wrong.

lunab973h ago

Damn, that's a wild example. So the sim basically trained you to expect a fault that almost never happens in real life. How do you even begin to trust the other failure modes after something like that? Makes me wonder if the training ends up making people too robotic with the checklists instead of actually understanding the systems.