Here, in contrast, is a 1965-1980 era cockpit that even mere mortals, this poster included, can comprehend. Note, not a single circuit breaker!
(One weird design oddity, however, in some of the models: Note the lever on the floor just forward of the stick. That’s the elevator trim. Once snugly buckled in, it’s impossible for the pilot to reach it. It can be operated with the heel of one foot with some difficulty, but it’s not even designed for that and it’s awkward to do.)
Woah dude! Spoiler alert…
We have one of those on the 146, it’s the VNAV button. The FMS can do it, the aeroplane can do it, but the FMS/aeroplane combination can’t do it, so the button does nothing.
Is that what you fly, Richard? I’m no expert, but the type seems to have a rep as being a bit eccentric in a lot of ways.
Yes, I fly the BAe146 and the slightly more modern version, the Avro RJ.
It is British, I don’t know what else to say about it really. Eccentric, overly complicated, delightfully horrible, horribly delightful, sometimes just horrible. They range from full analogue like this BAE 146 cockpit | Roman Dolinsky | Flickr to half glass like this British Aerospace Avro 146-RJ100 - Swiss International Air Lines | Aviation Photo #1887114 | Airliners.net.
Our company manuals describe a “fleet standard” aircraft and then have a list of individual aircraft and how they differ from the fleet standard. It is telling that the “fleet standard” is a mythical beast that doesn’t actually exist, every single ship in the fleet is listed as having a difference from the standard.
Hah, sounds about right. That’s one of the things that scuppered the hugely costly RAF Nimrod MRA4 programme. Every MR2 aircraft that was to be upgraded with new wings etc was built to a different standard. Quite impressive really. :dubious:
“Elmira, NY” is a bit of a hint, I suspect.
sort of related - I have read about air crashes where the pilot was confused as to what direction they were going , sometimes they don’t even know they are headed down. I think JFK jr was an example of this. How does that happen? I assume part of it is the pilot is not reading the instruments correctly.
I missed this thread and am glad it was bumped, because I’ve been wondering about it for years. Thanks LSLGuy for the details!
Your sense of balance is very powerful and can be more compelling than the picture your brain is getting from your eyes (just try making yourself dizzy). Unfortunately your sense of balance is also easily fooled. You can sense accelerations but not easily tell the difference between steady states without complimentary input from your eyes. You can also more easily sense strong accelerations rather than gentle ones. If you can’t see outside the plane and don’t have trust in your instruments you can get into a situation where the accelerations your body feels fools you into thinking you are oriented in a way that you are not. This can happen in all three axis at once.
the instruments are not fooled so if you use them you should avoid problems ?
Yes, but you have to trust them. Imagine you walk into a room and are immediately surrounded by a large group of people yelling “fire! Turn around! Run away!” Meanwhile there are just three people who are giving opposite advice, “don’t turn around, come this way, it is safe this way.” Who to trust?
To complicate matters, sometimes the instruments are fooled, or they don’t work properly, or they may not even be fitted. Being safe flying on instruments is partly about training and practice and partly about having a properly equipped and maintained aircraft. A lack of either can lead to bad things.
Sure, but flying by instruments alone isn’t easy. It requires a ton of training, discipline, and unbroken attention. I’ve only tried it on flight simulators, and after several hours I concluded that it was way too much work to be any fun. And this was with my ass planted solidly in a desk chair, so I didn’t even have to fight my sense of balance.
To compare it to terrestrial life, think about what it takes to drive in heavy snow. You have watch the road right in front of you, to keep your car in lane (if possible), and your tires in tracks where they’ll have the most traction. You have to watch ahead, to avoid sudden steering or braking. You have to judge how much traction is available, by watching the road, and feeling how the car responds to steering, braking, or accelerating. You have to watch the cars around you, because they might lose traction and swerve or spin towards you. You have to watch cars behind you, because they might be approaching too fast to brake in time. And you have to watch your speed and judge whether it’s appropriate, because conditions can rapidly change between “cruise straight at 50 mph” to “take this icy gentle curve at 20 mph”. Since you only have one set of eyeballs and a brain that really can only pay attention to one or two things at a time, you have to constantly scan through everything in continual loop, taking just a second or two to watch any one thing. Let your attention lapse for a few seconds and, if you’re lucky, you’ll spin off the road into a snow bank.
I’ve done this a few times in truly frightening conditions, and it’s fucking exhausting.
PC flight simulators aren’t very good simulators really, not for manual flying at least. Instrument flying is fairly straight forward once you understand that the aeroplane will mostly fly itself and that the attitude indicator is the primary flight reference.
E.g. for cruise flight, with cruise power set, wings level and maybe 3º nose up on the attitude indicator* will have you flying straight and level. As long as it is in trim you won’t have to do much other than cross reference against the other instruments to check that the attitude is giving you what you want, ie not climbing or descending and not changing heading. With this concept nailed you find you only have to make very minor adjustments to keep the plane doing what you want, and you scan is mainly focussed on the AI just as it would be mainly focussed on the real horizon if it wasn’t obscured by clouds.
As for fighting your sense of balance, that only happens once you’ve lost your orientation. Provided you have been using the attitude indicator correctly your sense of balance will agree with your eyes and it is a good thing, as it allows you to feel what is happening. Flying a flight sim seated at a motionless chair makes it harder, not easier.
