Comment Re:Concorde Avionics (or lack thereof) (Score 1) 311
In general, pilots tend to prefer old-school analog dials and needles to digital readouts. Especially in high-performance aircraft. It's a heck of a lot easier to look at a needle and say, "oooh, that one's getting close to the red part," than to look at an LCD and say, "73. what does 73 mean? is that close to too high, or close to too low, or just right?"
Thus, when they rip out the old dials to put in computer screens, the computer screens display digital versions of the same old dials, because that's the way the pilots like it. (there was an article on /. a year or two ago on this in the space shuttle. but i'm too lazy to bother even thinking about finding it.)
And a CRT/LCD has a lot more that can go wrong than does a mechanical dial (considering that most of the data is gathered in a mechanical fashion anyways). Meaning that if you can have the exact same info displayed on a mechanical dial or on a picture of a mechanical dial on a digital display, replacing the dial with the digital makes no sense whatsoever.
It doesn't do any real damage when your computer crashes, so it's perfectly fine to "upgrade" to the latest whiz-bang, bleeding-edge, doesn't-actually-work technology. When an airplane travelling at super-sonic speeds crashes, it does a lot more damage, so it pays to consider your upgrades a little more carefully.
Thus, when they rip out the old dials to put in computer screens, the computer screens display digital versions of the same old dials, because that's the way the pilots like it. (there was an article on
And a CRT/LCD has a lot more that can go wrong than does a mechanical dial (considering that most of the data is gathered in a mechanical fashion anyways). Meaning that if you can have the exact same info displayed on a mechanical dial or on a picture of a mechanical dial on a digital display, replacing the dial with the digital makes no sense whatsoever.
It doesn't do any real damage when your computer crashes, so it's perfectly fine to "upgrade" to the latest whiz-bang, bleeding-edge, doesn't-actually-work technology. When an airplane travelling at super-sonic speeds crashes, it does a lot more damage, so it pays to consider your upgrades a little more carefully.
