My Design for Glass Cockpit Displays
From Project Magenta Wiki
My approach to alternative designs for flight displays (and their content) is more or less aesthetic. I don't really seek to make any major changes ( I also believe that "if it isn't broken, then don't fix it). My artist's impressions of what flight displays (and their content) "could have looked like/could look like", are merely to stimulate my mind in appreciating what results of decades of hard work has yielded. My greatest challenge creating these alternatives include:
- Preserving the quality/accuracy of information conveyed to the pilots by the flight instruments portrayed.
- Keeping to a minimum, information clutter or "crowded display", by maintaining the lowest density possible of information per display.
- Maximising simplicity of guages, scales and pointer/needles, so that even in the event of flight crew incapacitation -heaven forbid, the intervention by a layman for instance could have an increased chance of resolving the likely results of an un-manned cockpit...perhaps at the time when the cockpit should least be un-manned.
- Raising the aesthetic levels of the displays (and their contents).
Over the years, I have been studying the trends in efficiency that has been exibited by the manner in which flight performance data has been displayed to pilots. The only way I could ever express my enthusiasm and admiration of how user-friendly and ergonomic these displays have turned out, is by developing my "alternatives". By that I mean, coming up with versions inspired by "what other different ways could they look like, while showing the same information, with the same quality...that pilots can easily assimilate". Details of this PFD include:
- Quick "Touch-screen" adjustments to the size/zoom, font size, scale calibration, color, contrast, brightness and sharpness of the display and its contents.
- Pilots can also toggle between what sets of information are displayed. For instance, swapping Calibrated Airspeed for Indicated Airspeed.
- The vertical scale on the left of the Horizon Indicator is the Angle-of-Attack meter. I am still looking at other ways of displaying it. The Flight Director Command bars appear as a "ghost" version of the airplane symbol in the center. It floats around the Horizon indicator in a dim white color, just as the magenta colored cross would in today's Flight Directors.
The difference between mine and the current ones is the live GPS readout in the upper left-hand corner as well as the compass rose which does not have that continuous "ring" linking the "degrees" on the edge of the compass. Other than that, I have not and will not change any of the icons that appear in the ND/HSI. I commend the clarity of todays color moving-map displays which show various combinations of:
- Traditional Nav-Aid: "Map Mode HSI".
- Vicinity traffic: TCAS/BCAS alerts (path conflicts).
- WXR a.k.a. colored, Doppler-Weather radar (Doppler "LIDAR" too).
- Colored Terrain radar.
- A revolutionary (still in my theory) 3D-Situation Display Indicator (3DSI):
- This uses altimeter data (from transponder/radar combo), speed, trajectory/track, vertical speeds and aircraft ID to give pilots an in-depth 3D view of the airspace around them. They can choose what virtual bearing/position and "Spot Plane" height to view there surroundings from as well as distance/range. A database of detailed airplane icons will help them to identify "traffic contacts" against their "transponded" ID.
- A combination of some or all of the above (though the risk of info. clutter rises, so pilots can instead use the "optimizer" setting which shows more info on a need-to-know or heirarchical basis).
Engine Warning & Caution Display
Only the appearance is different from the currnet versions. I've used a lot of blended color-coding (like I did with the Speed Envelope Protection Advisory in the airspeed indicator...PFD). There are several display modes for the EWCD; as you will find in todays EICAS (Boeing) and Airbus versions.
Flight Management System -II
(to be continued soon)
