Narrative:

I was conducting a ferry flight with another pilot on aircraft X. The other pilot came with me in order to begin familiarizing himself with the airplane and its systems; particularly with the G1000 system as he had no previous experience operating a glass cockpit. While enroute I was providing some instruction [of] the various aspects of the G1000; including the radio. We were operating on an IFR flight plan and maintaining assigned altitude; but at one point I realized that a significant amount of time had elapsed since I had heard from ATC. I discovered that at some point; the radio volume had been turned down. I quickly turned up the radio and reestablished radio contact. The controller informed me that he had been trying to get a hold of me and that he had to re-route some traffic in a MOA that I had flown through. He didn't tell me whether this resulted in an actual loss of separation; but either way I ended up flying through an active MOA while on an IFR flight plan and did not hear any instructions to descend below it. While retrieving my briefing; I saw that the MOA along in my route was active beginning at 8;000 feet. I filed for 11;000 expecting the controller to descend me below it if necessary. Obviously; that did not happen in the NORDO situation.a lot factors played into this situation. First; I recently conducted several flights through very quiet airspace (especially after covid) during which I would go 30 minutes or more before hearing anyone talk on the radio; whether to me or someone else. This made the silence a bit more normalized.second; I was expecting ATC to keep me out of any airspace I needed to avoid. During previous flights; I would normally confirm with ATC that any restricted areas along my route were cold before flying through them; even while IFR. In this situation; I think I became overly reliant on ATC to keep up my situational awareness while instructing. I also didn't give as much consideration to the MOA as I could have since flying through an active one is more common than other types of special use airspace.third; simply dealing with the student/pilot added to my workload. Had I not been working with the student; this probably would not have happened. I honestly can't remember now who turned down the radio; but either way; the situation would not have happened if training wasn't part of the mission on this flight.of course; this simply comes down to a situational awareness issue. While I'm not a brand new instructor; I recognize that I always need to continue practicing and refining the art of teaching while dealing with the challenges of operating an aircraft. I constantly teach my students to aviate; navigate; and then communicate. In this case; I simply let the instructing take away from those priorities. Still; here are some other practical steps to take to prevent this in the future: avoiding any special use airspace when flying with students unless the lesson specifically involves dealing with such airspace. While the primary purpose of this flight was not training; having the pilot/student on board was the primary factor contributing to the incident. While it may not have prevented the NORDO situation; everything could have been made less serious by simply filing around or below the MOA.prior to this flight; we had covered some ground material concerning the G1000 and aircraft X; but we never spent any time in the airplane on the ground. When I train students on the G1000; I normally spend at least an hour going over the system while the aircraft is on the ground powered by a gpu. We didn't do that in this situation because the primary mission was ferrying; not training. In the future though; I'll familiarize the student as much as possible with the system on the ground in all situations before flying.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: GA pilot reported becoming NORDO and flying through an MOA.

Narrative: I was conducting a ferry flight with another pilot on Aircraft X. The other pilot came with me in order to begin familiarizing himself with the airplane and its systems; particularly with the G1000 system as he had no previous experience operating a glass cockpit. While enroute I was providing some instruction [of] the various aspects of the G1000; including the radio. We were operating on an IFR flight plan and maintaining assigned altitude; but at one point I realized that a significant amount of time had elapsed since I had heard from ATC. I discovered that at some point; the radio volume had been turned down. I quickly turned up the radio and reestablished radio contact. The Controller informed me that he had been trying to get a hold of me and that he had to re-route some traffic in a MOA that I had flown through. He didn't tell me whether this resulted in an actual loss of separation; but either way I ended up flying through an active MOA while on an IFR flight plan and did not hear any instructions to descend below it. While retrieving my briefing; I saw that the MOA along in my route was active beginning at 8;000 feet. I filed for 11;000 expecting the Controller to descend me below it if necessary. Obviously; that did not happen in the NORDO situation.A lot factors played into this situation. First; I recently conducted several flights through very quiet airspace (especially after COVID) during which I would go 30 minutes or more before hearing anyone talk on the radio; whether to me or someone else. This made the silence a bit more normalized.Second; I was expecting ATC to keep me out of any airspace I needed to avoid. During previous flights; I would normally confirm with ATC that any restricted areas along my route were cold before flying through them; even while IFR. In this situation; I think I became overly reliant on ATC to keep up my situational awareness while instructing. I also didn't give as much consideration to the MOA as I could have since flying through an active one is more common than other types of special use airspace.Third; simply dealing with the student/pilot added to my workload. Had I not been working with the student; this probably would not have happened. I honestly can't remember now who turned down the radio; but either way; the situation would not have happened if training wasn't part of the mission on this flight.Of course; this simply comes down to a situational awareness issue. While I'm not a brand new instructor; I recognize that I always need to continue practicing and refining the art of teaching while dealing with the challenges of operating an aircraft. I constantly teach my students to aviate; navigate; and then communicate. In this case; I simply let the instructing take away from those priorities. Still; here are some other practical steps to take to prevent this in the future: Avoiding any special use airspace when flying with students unless the lesson specifically involves dealing with such airspace. While the primary purpose of this flight was not training; having the pilot/student on board was the primary factor contributing to the incident. While it may not have prevented the NORDO situation; everything could have been made less serious by simply filing around or below the MOA.Prior to this flight; we had covered some ground material concerning the G1000 and Aircraft X; but we never spent any time in the airplane on the ground. When I train students on the G1000; I normally spend at least an hour going over the system while the aircraft is on the ground powered by a GPU. We didn't do that in this situation because the primary mission was ferrying; not training. In the future though; I'll familiarize the student as much as possible with the system on the ground in all situations before flying.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.