Comment Re:Voice recognition (Score 1) 329
the problem with John Denver's plane had nothing to do with the selector being confusing. It was placed in such a way that you could not physically reach it to change it without getting out of your seat unless you were in the rear seat (not the pilot's seat).
The rear seat *is* the "pilot's seat" in a Long-EZ. The design *plans* call for the fuel selector to be between the pilot's legs.
The builder (having purchased the plans) felt this was not a safe place - that meant that fuel lines would have to be routed through the cockpit. In case of a crash, that would mean fuel spilling in the cockpit, with the resultant risk of fire.
He felt it safer to instead, move the selector to the engine firewall, and put the knob on the back of the cockpit wall. This meant that the selector had a shaft that extended back into the firewall, moving the source of fuel to the engine. Good intentions and all of that.
(The biggest problem was the selector was un-placarded as to what selection was which.)
Reaching over the left shoulder was easily accomplished - unless of course, you had a pillow in your back so you could reach the rudder pedals.
The problem was with the adaption of the original Rutan design - to deal (as history has shown, poorly) with a design issue that Rutan considered unimportant to the disagreement of the builder. To get back to the thread at hand - the builder changed the interface because he disagreed with the designer.
The rear seat *is* the "pilot's seat" in a Long-EZ. The design *plans* call for the fuel selector to be between the pilot's legs.
The builder (having purchased the plans) felt this was not a safe place - that meant that fuel lines would have to be routed through the cockpit. In case of a crash, that would mean fuel spilling in the cockpit, with the resultant risk of fire.
He felt it safer to instead, move the selector to the engine firewall, and put the knob on the back of the cockpit wall. This meant that the selector had a shaft that extended back into the firewall, moving the source of fuel to the engine. Good intentions and all of that.
(The biggest problem was the selector was un-placarded as to what selection was which.)
Reaching over the left shoulder was easily accomplished - unless of course, you had a pillow in your back so you could reach the rudder pedals.
The problem was with the adaption of the original Rutan design - to deal (as history has shown, poorly) with a design issue that Rutan considered unimportant to the disagreement of the builder. To get back to the thread at hand - the builder changed the interface because he disagreed with the designer.
