Thank goodness for hybrid touch

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   I have spent a lot of time recently flight testing the IFD540 in one of our company aircraft.  It is also equipped with a Garmin GTN750 (and a Garmin 530W).
In even very mild bumpy air, an all-touch device is notably difficult to use.  In real bumps, it's virtually impossible.   I find that the typical bumpy air is up/down or vertical as opposed to left/right or lateral motion.  The finger ledges along the left/right edges of the GTN are useless for me in counteracting that type of bumpy air.

On the other hand, the IFD540 uses what we call "hybrid touch" meaning that virtually everything (map panning is the only real exception) can be done either via touch OR via bezel knobs and buttons.  Thank goodness for that.  When I try using just exclusively touch, I find it maddenly frustrating.   The chances of touching what I actually want is just  pure luck (and poor luck at that).   Having a knob to grab onto or a dedicated bezel button has been a savior and in my mind, completely reinforces the "essential" status or need for those controls.

All of that was really to be expected by anyone who flies even a little.  What I hadn't anticipated was that in those bumpy conditions, you can inadvertently touch the glass when you are trying to actuate the knobs and buttons.  Sometimes, you don't even know what you touched and it takes some effort to figure out or "undo" what you might have just done.   For that challenge, I'm really glad that we have a top level control that allows the pilot to turn off touch and use strictly the bezel controls.  Because we put it at the top level, it's simple to get to via the bezel controls and I find that it has become my primary technique as soon as I get into real bumpy air and then I turn touch back on when I've gotten back to smooth air.