Posted on 03/27/2009 6:22:08 AM PDT by Rubicks13
AVIATION WEEK posted an article about aircraft upgrades, new glass cockpits are at the top of the list for many owners.
Since the earliest days of aviation, pilots have been staring at gauges to help ascertain the condition of their machines and the world around them. Orville and Wilbur had three instruments on their first Flyer: a stopwatch, an anemometer for measuring wind speed and a tachometer. Subsequently and especially since the introduction of instrument flight and the development of the standard T cluster, engineers managed to cover every available inch of cockpit real estate with some type of instrument, button or switch...
Glass Cockpits for Maintainers: Looking Behind the Screen
Glass cockpits have reached down to the very simplest and lightest aircraft. A new Aeronca 7EC Champ with G-1000 glass cockpit costs $ 120,000. Get a clue. Stupid, wasteful, and dangerous.
Plus you can't thump 'em with your finger when the readings don't look right ..(8^)
MFD’s (multi function displays) as described, in Light Aircraft, are a solution in search of a question.
steam gagues for all their faults are less of a troubleshooting problem, especially in flight.
Either the gague is the issue or the system it monitors.
A crt/LCD may have three or four different things that make it go blank. and that’s not counting software/hardware issues on the computers.
(full disclosure, I’m a network engineer not a licensed pilot)
one visual joke that always makes the rounds after and Airbus goes in is the Blue Screen of Death (usually a page fault) on all three primary monitors.
MFD’s in light aircraft like a Champ are basicly waaay over engineered solutions to nonexistant issues.
rule the 1st, fly the bird. The instruments are there to ‘inform’ the pilot of the bird’s condition.
woerm
I’m an avionics guy—haven’t read this yet-I’ll bookmark it for later-but, even without reading the article, I can say- it’s a two-edged sword.
Obviously, technology has evolved where, when everything’s working, it’s amazing. In terms of function, features, savings in weight reduction, and size and space restrictions, etc.
Bad thing is it co$ts big buck$, and often the more complex something is, the less things work well-especially early on in development. Plus 2 years later the costly system you bought is superseded by a costly system with more/cooler stuff. If you’re Uncle Sugar, they just take it out of your tax dollars, but everyone else....
And when you have to fix something like that—it’s not usually simple or cheap.
Its not nonsense. - He has a valid point.
I am an FAA certified aviation instructor.
I am an avionics engineer and have helped develop some of the systems mentioned in the article.
>>snip
one visual *joke* that always makes the rounds after an Airbus goes in is the Blue Screen of Death (usually a page fault) on all three primary monitors.
Photoshop.
>>end snip
I know, that why I called it a *visual joke*.
btw I prefer Boeings as the Pilot get the last vote, not the *bleeping* flight director. Usually the Pilot wants to get home in one piece. The flight director just wants to execute the next line of code.
I can see updated systems and as long as there is some form of an exceptable cost benefit solution, but glassing a 7AC cockpit? That might run up to a TMI (TO MUCH INFORMATION)overload on some poor student.
That brings to mind the full IFR suite I saw some years ago in a BD5J. Full IFR and weather radar in a craft I wouldn’t even contemplate flying in any thing but VFR condtions (the two I saw set up like that didn’t have fuel gagues, just those little fiberoptic things in the tank). brrr. But hey it’s their $$ not mine.
woerm
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