At first glance, the amount of buttons, screens and switches is quite daunting in an airplane of this size. Nearly all of us would find it overwhelming to try and learn what everything in a cockpit does. Although you really have to wonder how many of these switches are necessary to actually fly the plane. What inspires this thought is when i get into my car and look at the dash, there is actually quite an abundance of buttons and switches, and i know that in certain luxury cars there can be up to 150 buttons. Yet if we simply want to drive the car without using the radio or the climate control or anything else that is not essential to controlling the car all we end up using is the steering wheel, pedals, gearshift and handbrake. So I have to wonder if an airplane has similar principles.
At first glance, the amount of buttons, screens and switches is quite daunting in an airplane of this size. Nearly all of us would find it overwhelming to try and learn what everything in a cockpit does. Although you really have to wonder how many of these switches are necessary to actually fly the plane. What inspires this thought is when i get into my car and look at the dash, there is actually quite an abundance of buttons and switches, and i know that in certain luxury cars there can be up to 150 buttons. Yet if we simply want to drive the car without using the radio or the climate control or anything else that is not essential to controlling the car all we end up using is the steering wheel, pedals, gearshift and handbrake. So I have to wonder if an airplane has similar principles.
They probably do. I’d guess that most of that stuff isn’t used most of the time.