As if you couldn’t guess, I very much enjoy cockpit interior videos.
Here, a McDonnell Doughlas T-45C Goshawk is affixed to the catapult, launched, and then trapped for qualifications. The curved lines atop the canopy are forms of detcord, whose job it is to perforate and destroy the canopy prior to a pilot ejecting. It would be very poor form, you see, to eject a pilot through the perspex itself.
BZ
Video from the interior of an Airbus A319, the craft is going to land at Paro, Bhutan. Early in the video you can see the Jeppesen chart for Paro clipped to the window ledge of the pilot. Final approach includes a very low hard right, then an even lower hard left. All planes must perform a 180-degree pivot at the end of the runway to acquire the terminal.
My question early on: where is the airport?
BZ
The plight of Malaysian Air flight 370 is a riddle ensconced in a conundrum encased in a riddle with a dash of mystery as well.
Theories abound, revolving around nothing more than a simple crash into the ocean, to the esoteric and conspiratic.
What do you believe occurred to Flight 370?
BZ
From Vice.com:
The Pentagon’s pursuit of the Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter jet has been a heartbreaking one. If you’re a taxpayer, the program’s estimated $1 trillion price tag probably breaks your heart a little bit. If you’re an aviation enthusiast, the constant whittling away of the do-it-all aircraft’s features, which in many cases actually amounts to adding weight and taking away maneuverability, must hurt a little bit too.
If you’re just an everyday American, though, you should be downright shattered that after a decade and a fortune spent, the F-35 will actually be more vulnerable than the aircraft it’s replacing. At this point, the Pentagon is literally rewriting its rule book so that the dumbed-down superjet will pass muster.
Shocked and astounded are you? You shouldn’t be. Many of America’s aircraft have, historically, started out as one thing and become another, bloated, too multi-tasked, too technical, and gold-plated beyond belief. Some of these airframes would be, for example, any swing-wing model (think of the F-111, the F-14 and the B-1). Too heavy, too slow, too costly, too unmaneuverable.
The Defense Department’s annual weapons-testing report reveals that the military actually adjusted the performance specifications for the consistently underperforming line of F-35 fighter jets. In other words, they couldn’t get the jets to do what they were supposed to do, so they just changed what they were supposed to do.
They did it via a scheme that the amazing USAF Colonel John Boyd called “gold plating.” Or also: “when in doubt of an aircraft passing the bar, lower the bar.”
Does that concept sound familiar?
John Boyd was a USAF military genius, eccentric, brilliant, who created amongst other things the OODA Loop. An excellent book about Mr Boyd here, by Robert Coram, entitled “Boyd, the fighter pilot who changed the Art of War.”
BZ
I find myself absolutely fascinated with what occurs in the cockpit of airplanes, the cockpit of racing cars, the cab of locomotives, the bridge of ocean-going vessels.
In that vein, I first connected with Airbus here, regarding their then-new A380. It was “do or die” for Airbus and its parent company, the Euro consortium EADS. They’ve pulled it out; for now.
I then posted this incredible video from PilotsEye.tv regarding an Airbus A380 landing on Sunday, June 9th.
Now, I proffer this wonderful video (a bit long at 24 minutes but truly worth every second) which is a compilation of the German website PilotsEye.tv “best of.”
You’ll no doubt notice that, involving Airbus aircraft, “joysticks” are substituted for the traditional “yokes” once centrally placed before the pilot and co-pilot.
That said, one of the largest gripes about Airbus control systems involved pilots who were right-hand dominant. They had to “re-learn” how to yield critical and very detailed aircraft input from their left hands on the left-mounted command pilot joystick controller. No small deal, but your very life depends on the ability of the pilot you drew on your Airbus flight to have transitioned from his right hand in detail to his left hand.
Innocent Question: do most co-pilots therefore make landings on Airbuses? It would, after all, make them more valuable as potential pilots, would it not?
And I’ll wager the bulk of you couldn’t tell an Airbus from a Boeing and the major difference it makes.
Check out this typical Airbus A380 cockpit:
Note the far-left and far-right pilot and co-pilot joystick control columns.
Detail of an Airbus co-pilot joystick controller here:
Let’s make a comparison, shall we? A Boeing 787 Dreamliner cockpit below:
Notice a difference?
Finally, for those interested in commercial aircraft photographs, there is a wonderful website for civilian airline photos here: AirLiners.net.
Boeing commercial website here. Airbus commercial aircraft website here.
Hope you enjoy the video as much as I did.
BZ
P.S.
When you hear the cockpit command audio module in Airbus aircraft state :”RETARD RETARD RETARD,” it is referring to throttle input.