13 ms·

What is good and bad about the F-35 cockpit

149 points by edward 6y ago

DSingularity 6y ago
Wow, how did the fact that the G-forces will make it difficult to use voice commands or to interact with a touch screen not kill these F35 cockpit features a long time ago?
- medium_burrito 6y ago
  First, I'm curious if they use a throat mike or something bone conducting. Second, given how shitty voice interfaces are, I'm shocked they would use them at all. I assume the military funds a lot of EEG research- that would be ideal here.
  - stickydink 6y ago
    Not sure how much I'd trust my brain for this kind of thing... Thinking "I better not press that eject button!" might be problematic
    - rtkwe 6y ago
      Ejection isn't on the screen it's the big yellow loop between their legs. https://martin-baker.com/products/mk16-ejection-seat-f-35/ https://martin-baker.com/products/mk16-ejection-seat-f-35/
  - etrautmann 6y ago
    EEG requires highly stable signals. G forces would make any EEG measurements extremely unreliable.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    According to the article the author knows of no pilots that use the voice interface. Given how finicky they are I can't say I'm surprised. Maybe with modern pseudo-AI systems they could be reliable enough to depend on, but none of that is in military hardware specced out 20 years ago.
    - medium_burrito 6y ago
      If you used the nato phonetic alphabet maybe, ie shortcodes for voice???
      - jandrese 6y ago
        It would probably help, but there is still the enormous noise floor to contend with. Jet Fighters are unbelievably loud. I mean that literally. If you've never watched one take off you would think I'm exaggerating the noise level. It's hard to describe because most people have never experienced something that loud.
  - scarier 6y ago
    >I'm curious if they use a throat mike or something bone conducting. No, and no. Just good, old-fashioned microphones and speakers. If you're lucky, you have a set of "communication ear plugs" wired up to your helmet so the speakers in your earcups aren't trying to compete with engine noise and your ear plugs.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- waiseristy 6y ago
  These voice commands are usually just for changing radio settings and other non-essential functionality. Stuff that would be just as difficult to change with tactile switches in high G. The Eurofighter has been using a similar system since the 90's
- mshockwave 6y ago
  I only know some standard "anti-G" actions involve breathing really hard while keeping your lungs inflated. I guess that makes speaking more difficult?
- JohnBooty 6y ago
  To be really specific for those not aware, pilots need to do special breathing routines when under high g-forces. Deep, rapid breaths. They need to suck oxygen into their body as quickly and efficiently as possible to maintain consciousness, because the g-forces forces blood away from their heads and towards their legs and feet. Here's a "classic" video of a pilot successfully evading an unbelievable number of SAMs over Iraq. The rapid breathing might make you think he's panicking. Nope, he's got it 100% under control and is following training perfectly. Though I'm sure he certainly needed a drink after making it home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUjX1RntqVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUjX1RntqVw There's also sort of a method of flexing their thighs that they learn. Restricts blood flow to the legs, so there's more blood for the rest of the body. That's a bit of an athletic endeavor in and of itself. Try flexing your thighs... now hold them that way for 5, 10, 20 minutes. Yikes. Anyway, how the hell could you even bark out voice commands while doing that sort of breathing!?!?
dmix 6y ago
> two MFDs with the classic 20 pushbuttons around the outside MFD = multi-functional display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-function_display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-function_display There's always acronyms in these sort of posts that I get to learn. And probably relevant to this: > Something that has been lost in all glass cockpits is the tactile feel of pressing buttons and knowing you got a response As I'm assuming they all went touch screen
- stretchcat 6y ago
  I wonder if they've considered wearable haptics. A little buzzer somewhere in their flight suit might provide pilots with 'a button was pushed' confirmations. Maybe that would be too distracting though.
  - banana_giraffe 6y ago
    I've missed notifications on my phone on long flights because I didn't feel the buzzer. I can't imagine a fighter jet is more conducive to feeling a buzzer than a commercial airline. Honestly, I'm amazed the buttons around the edge of the screen aren't context aware buttons based off which screen a non-touchscreen display is showing.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    It would probably be a little hard to feel when you're already getting buzzed constantly by the turbine engines and airflow.
    - stretchcat 6y ago
      True... maybe if they could get buzzers in the fingertips of the gloves... maybe. You're probably right though, the vibrations of the aircraft would drown it all out.
  - scarier 6y ago
    The issue is less the confirmation that a thing happened and more the ability to locate the right thing to begin with. It's easy to count buttons by feel and be sure you have the right one, but almost impossible to locate an arbitrary part of a touchscreen without looking at it.
visviva 6y ago
> At present I am pressing the wrong part of the screen about 20% of the time in flight due to either mis-identification, or more commonly by my finger getting jostled around in turbulence or under G. That seems... bad, but also totally unsurprising.
- waiseristy 6y ago
  I'm surprised there isn't more hand rests used in these applications, similar to how the Dragon capsule has those finger "shelves" for the touch panels. Would make accurate touch input at least slightly easier
  - jandrese 6y ago
    Yeah, this seems like a fairly easy workaround. A possible limitation is the cramped cockpit may literally not have enough room, your knees might hit the rests when working the rudder. Maybe if it were a flip-down thing where you could rest your hand when needed, but also bounce it out of the way when its not needed.
  - t0mas88 6y ago
    Some general aviation planes have this, I've only used one during a short test flight in a simulator but it seemed to work quite well.
  - scarier 6y ago
    Hand rests are only half the problem--even with a totally steady finger, it's tough to consistently find a small area on a touchscreen (and that's even ignoring the level of customization the F-35 allows) without looking at it. The author wasn't joking when he talked about inputting coordinates without looking at the control panel, and I expect it to take some massive advancements in haptics before we can do anything similar with touchscreens.
- pmontra 6y ago
  The author adds > think how much easier it is to type on a smartphone with your thumbs versus trying to stab at a virtual keyboard on a large tablet with just your index finger. My experience typing on a touch screen on bumpy roads or even a seemingly smooth highway at normal speed (as passenger of course) is that I miss a lot of keys, even if I grab my phone with two hands and I type with thumbs, which are a little too wide. Luckily I learned to swype and that works much better because of the constant contact with the screen. Fingers can't jump away. Still, getting shifted characters right is a problem. A physical keyboard is much better in that environment.
dirtyid 6y ago
https://i.redd.it/z9tejhhbg6931.jpg https://i.redd.it/z9tejhhbg6931.jpg This is way more sparse and streamlined than I thought. Wonder how big the manual for flight simulator game would be. Some video of UI in action on simulator. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSy8DcLaRDo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSy8DcLaRDo Are there any design documentations for UX/UI for military hardware? Is there a name for this style. Is it actually as functional as it looks? I wonder how these designers feel about dealing with military powerpoints.
- nickff 6y ago
  There are many design guidelines and studies for A&D (aerospace and defense); everything from which typeface to use, to how to display quantities and directions. I am not away of any comprehensive style guide or all-encompassing name for it.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  > Wonder how big the manual for flight simulator game would be. One manual for the F-14B is about 1k pages, so I would assume this would clock in significantly more than that due to the added capabilities (in information at least, possibly not pages due to the F-14 being pre-HOTAS and things like that http://server.3rd-wing.net/public/Ked/natops%20F14B.pdf http://server.3rd-wing.net/public/Ked/natops%20F14B.pdf
- pugworthy 6y ago
  Looking at the picture, that's surprisingly sparse.
- svachalek 6y ago
  As an intern 25+ years ago I had an assignment to draw up mocks for a new UH-1N interface based on pilot feedback. There were a lot of rules (I think all under the umbrella of "MIL-SPEC"), but I think the one that sunk in the most was that the design had to work in monochrome. Depending on shades and colors breaks the design for the color-blind but also ruins interactions in bad lighting conditions, wearing helmets, etc. It was a bigger, bolder look than was common on desktop computers, and I've always personally loved the style. There was a brief rise of similar rules in the civilian world as things moved mobile and we had to work on small screens with big fingers, but the direction now is to try to remove anything that might hint of interaction from the screen entirely. (Not a fan of this myself!) I've been in civilian work pretty much ever since so I have no idea how things have changed since then. Edit: on second glance I think a lot of the same principles are still in effect. While colorful I'm not sure that anything depends on reading the color, and seen from the pilot's chair it probably isn't all that crowded.
blhack 6y ago
It’s infuriating trying to use the touch screen in my wife’s minivan to change the radio station. I can’t imagine the frustration trying to use a touch screen to fly a fighter jet. More buttons please!
- nickff 6y ago
  There are lots of buttons and switches on the throttle and stick. Most modern western fighters are designed for HOTAS (hands on throttle and stick) operation, where the pilot never takes their hands off the throttle and stick during combat.
- topspin 6y ago
  > I can’t imagine the frustration trying to use a touch screen to fly a fighter jet. A war plane is something you have to operate while it's burning, or while you're bleeding on it, or while you can't see properly because it's full of smoke or someone just blinded you with a laser. The adoption of touch screens in this sort of cockpit seems misguided. Particularly for anything related to controlling comms or navigation.
  - Retric 6y ago
    That’s really not how we design modern jet fighters. Air combat involves a huge number of tradeoffs and ejecting is now the correct response to a wide range of issues. For example, the F-35 so engine so engine failure is likely to result in a lost aircraft. It’s basically been decided that we are going to spend silly money keeping a small number of absolutely cutting edge aircraft flying rather than thousands if not tens of thousands of of likely more efficient but less capable possibly drone aircraft. PS: To be clear it’s possible their making the correct choice. I personally doubt it, but I don’t have access to the kind of classified documents to justify things in one way or another. An effective labor weapon for example might render vastly cheaper drone fleets ineffective.
    - jki275 6y ago
      No, the post above is exactly correct. Ejecting from an aircraft is an absolute last resort, and you stand a good chance of dying or being badly injured if you have to do it, and even if you survive the ejection, the parachute ride, and the landing, it's a better than even chance you're going to be captured and beaten, tortured, or killed on the ground. That's if you land on land of course -- if you land in the water you might just drown or never be found.
cccc4all 6y ago
F-35 is a slush fund for politicians and Military Industrial Entertainment Technology sector. $1.5 Trillion and counting.
d_silin 6y ago
You can learn quite a lot about aviation UI experience from civilian airliners' instruments. I did work a little bit with Boeing-777X ones. It is not great, actually. PFD (primary flight displays) are cluttered and information-noisy. HUD is a much better tool for flying experience. Fortunately for civilian pilots, this is becoming more common now. FMS (flight management system) has all the usability of IBM mainframes from 1960s and about the same performance. The tasks that pilot have to do before the flight are rather simple: you have to input weather conditions, aircraft load and waypoints for autopilot. But with even the most modern FMS it is a tedious and frustrating process, you have non-intuitive control flow and non-qwerty keyboard. Also all text-based, non-graphical interface. The better parts of aicraft UI are EICAS/ECAM (engine information and alerts) - they are both useful and intuitive to understand, with emphasis on graphical indication. A lot of hard to use bits are not from any technology limitations - modern aircraft displays are rather capable, but from the decades of industry legacy and expensive certifications required for any change.
- d_silin 6y ago
  To elaborate on my point. Arcade flight and space simulators have probably the optimal possible UI for "aviate/navigate/communicate" activities.
- t0mas88 6y ago
  Ask any pilot what the most complex part is about switching aircrafts and getting a new type rating. It's never the way the plane handles, is always either remembering the mandatory systems knowledge or how to use the FMS. I flew along on a small private jet recently, their system was 10x easier to understand and more capable than the typical airliner... So it is possible, probably even at a lower cost.
  - mshockwave 6y ago
    are private jets under different regulations (rules)?
    - bdavis__ 6y ago
tra3 6y ago
I upgraded my car's stereo and it went from a knob for volume control to two small buttons. Hate it. It was difficult enough to find stereo with dedicated volume buttons. The rest of the functionality is via touch. Not a fan. I've never driven a BWM, but I believe they have a knob beside the shifter that allows you to go through the menus.. that feels like a much better system.
- t0mas88 6y ago
  They do, and also a physical volume knob that you can find and turn without looking at it. When I had a rental Renault that had everything on a touchscreen I thought "cool, looks modern!" when I looked at it stationary. And then totally hated it after 5 minutes of driving because it is so much worse to use on the road than the BMW system with actual buttons and the controller you can use blindly.
  - jeromenerf 6y ago
    Renault cars have audio controls behind the right hand side of the steering wheel, alongside the touchscreen. It works fine and you keep your hands on the wheel.
    - t0mas88 6y ago
      Not sure this one had, it was a very basic clio. With another user interface decision that baffled me... The button to enable cruise control was under the central armrest, and if pressed the wrong way would enable a speed limit instead of cruise. Never seen another brand put cruise control under your right elbow instead of somewhere on the wheel.
      - elSidCampeador 6y ago
        Aah the French and their quirky sense of design
- aidenn0 6y ago
  My 2018 Mazda has a touchscreen, but 100% of the functionality can be done with physical buttons. It's the best interface for a car center-stack I've used on any car in the past 15 years or so.
waiseristy 6y ago
Alright, HN. Some required listening for you : The Harrier : https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/episodes/056-av-8-harrier/ https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/episodes/056-av-8-harrie... The F35 : https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/episodes/078-f-35-lightning-ii/ https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/episodes/078-f-35-lightn... The Eurofighter (for their short discussion on the voice commands): https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/episodes/058-eurofighter-typhoon/ https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/episodes/058-eurofighter...
snide 6y ago
I play a lot of Digital Combat Simulator, which models a lot of these planes. At first I was interested in shooting things, then I was interested in the flying, but in the end I learned I was most interested in the computer systems and how these games are mostly virtual simulations of old computers. It's fun to see what changed over the years and between cultures. The MiGs are completely different than their Western counterparts. How you navigate from point to point is often completely different. It's also interesting how durable the UX of MFDs were in cockpit design. When I went for my GA license, it was funny to see how many newer models of planes had moved to "glass" cockpits. It some ways, it felt like putting wifi on your fridge. Most of the GA planes folks fly were made in the 70s.
- unoti 6y ago
  Agreed! If the information in this article is even slightly interesting to you, then you owe it to yourself to spend some time with Digital Combat Simulator. In there you can get first-hand experience with the Harrier and the F/A 18 discussed in the article. You will spend a lot of time with the cockpits and start to develop your own affinity for things in the cockpit, and develop your own ideas about what you like and what you don't. Do a Google Images search for "DCS FA18 cockpit" or "DCS Harrier cockpit" and you'll see that the real life photos are pretty much indistinguishable from the screenshots, if you take the word "DCS" out of the search term. Every switch and gauge are faithfully simulated, and you can use the real-life operating manuals to operate these simulators. There's a lot of overlap with a lot of the things I love about computer systems. It's fun to learn, and to operate systems, and to feel that feeling of mastery as you gain confidence in making the machines do your bidding. Those types of feelings are much the same (and different) between operating computers and operating aircraft systems. To a large extent these modern planes feels a lot like operating a big flying computer, at least in the simulators. This is also true of things like the Cessna G1000 glass cockpit in Flight Sim 2020.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    > DCS FA18 cockpit One thing that's particularly impressive about the F/A-18 is that the Spec available in DCS (give or take a few features) is almost the same as the first batch from the 80s UI wise. In 1983, serving alongside the almost completely analog/60s F-14, the F/A-18 had 3 pretty modern MFDs. Definitely more advanced than most Star Wars cockpits, for example.
gorgoiler 6y ago
I love how immediately obvious it is that the Harrier cockpit lets you see downwards. Also, the red button on the stick really brings home just how much flying these machine is like a flying a loaded gun.
- Merad 6y ago
  > I love how immediately obvious it is that the Harrier cockpit lets you see downwards. That's mostly the camera angle. The F/A-18 and F-35 cockpit shows have the camera positioned about where the pilot's head would be (looking straight ahead through the HUD) whereas the Harrier photo has the camera positioned higher looking down into the cockpit.
- scarier 6y ago
  Yeah, it's a fantastic cockpit. For what it's worth, just pressing either of the red buttons on the stick won't operate any of the weapons systems--there are plenty of other safety interlocks in place to prevent a bomb coming off accidentally.
ajcp 6y ago
Simple solution: each pilot gets the military equivalent of a stream deck[1] that is loaded with their own configuration. Have a mounting option in the cockpit and Bob's your uncle. 1. https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/stream-deck https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/stream-deck
heisenbergs 6y ago
> One of the biggest drawbacks is that you can’t brace your hand against anything whilst typing – think how much easier it is to type on a smartphone with your thumbs versus trying to stab at a virtual keyboard on a large tablet with just your index finger This is a common problem for large touch screens, that I've experienced for instance in Tesla's massive displays too. the way around it: always rest part of your hand against something stable, ie in the tesla wrap your pinky around the display and then use your thumb or index finger. For me it increased accuracy from 80% to 99%. This doesn't work if you need to touch the center of the screen, all other parts work great.
xnomad 6y ago
I'd hate to be a carrier pilot and the helmet fails on blue water ops, you can't land, only option is to go for a swim. And single engine too over water... hmmmm no thanks. No backup instrumentation either.
- nabla9 6y ago
  Carrier landings should move eventually to JPALS (all-weather landing system) in some time in the future. It's military Autoland that works even for carriers and amphibious assault ships). Drones will also be using it, I think.
- scarier 6y ago
  A lot of the references you use to land on carriers are outside the aircraft, and the process is becoming largely automated. Besides, we've been flying single-engine aircraft blue-water for decades--it's not THAT bad in the grand scheme of things...
- kart23 6y ago
  The carrier f-35 can hover. You can just line it up by sight.
joeblow21 6y ago
The biggest problem with the F35 is that there is a cockpit at all. The human immediately makes the platform less capable and 20x more expensive
starpilot 6y ago
He kinda buried the lede: > Having bashed the interface, the way this jet displays information to you is incredible. The sheer amount of situational awareness I gain from this aircraft and its displays is like nothing I’ve experienced before. The off-boresight helmet is much more accurate than legacy JHMCS systems and I find it clearer to read (although I still want a wide-angle HUD for flight and fight-critical data!). About the only thing missing from the whole cockpit is the lack of ‘feel’. The prevailing narrative on HN and elsewhere (that seems to be a US DoD disinfo campaign) is that the JSF is an overpriced, overcomplicated piece of junk. Then there are these murmurs (largely from actual operators) leaking the fact that the aircraft is actually "incredible."
blobbers 6y ago
I thought this was pretty interesting. The basic problem of lack of tactile feedback is one you can test easily by trying to type on on an iphone vs. an old school blackberry while riding a roller coaster. When you have something to brace against, it's just a lot easier to be stable. I'm surprised researchers haven't figured out a way to solve this in a better way (maybe it's a haptic screen that can be reconfigured... the way LED keyboards work) The 20% error rate the pilot describes seems... like a really really big problem.
keymone 6y ago
And then comes musk with neuralink. Oh boy imagine the number of zeroes on their contracts with the military.
FearNotDaniel 6y ago
> Something that has been lost in all glass cockpits is the tactile feel of pressing buttons and knowing you got a response – I found you could enter Lat/Longs by feel whilst looking out the window. This is something you definitely can’t do ‘on the glass’ on current jets. I also really miss this from the dumbphone era. I used to be able to type SMS texts by feel using a T9 keypad while walking down the street, and only occasionally have to check the screen to see what I wrote. Smartphone QWERTY makes this impossible.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > Smartphone QWERTY makes this impossible I can absolutely type in my iPhone without looking at it. I just typed this comment with zero visual contact with my phone and no edits. (EDIT: this is a weirdly divisive comment.)
  - albertgoeswoof 6y ago
    M testing this out now, let’s see if I can dk it Edit: the answer is no
    - rjzzleep 6y ago
      I would agree with you from a personal perspective but my partner frequently does this on her Android. I personally find it creepy of her looking at me while obviously doing something else. I think I will never really get the hang of the mobile keyboard(though I tend to use touch swiping), because I just consider it inferior to any physical normal sized keyboard.
  - harperlee 6y ago
    Good for you! That’s an awesome skill. The point is, tactile feedback is essential for doing that to most of us, not that 0 people can do it.
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      > not that 0 people can do it Everyone in my (much) younger sister’s age group can do this. They grew up on touch devices. You and I didn’t. Just a note that one group’s personal experiences shouldn’t be generalised to the point of describing others’ as “impossible.”
avipars 6y ago
Surprised that this was released... should be secretive
mrweasel 6y ago
I'm fascinated by the picture from inside the Harrier cockpit, it's very much inline with the interior I've seen from other fighter planes. It just looks grimy and worn down, and fighter planes always seem to look like that in the cockpit.
richajak 6y ago
Looking at those cockpit photos, I suddenly remember that I sat in F18 cockpit during one of the public military show. It is small, I barely fit into it, those pilots must be slim. Cockpit also looked a bit rundown/worn off, not sure the design itself or simply wear and tear. In conclusion, it is a meh. So unlike the image portrayed in Top Gun novie.
decafninja 6y ago
Tangent, but something similar is my main beef with the Tesla Model 3 (& Y), which otherwise would be the perfect candidate for my next car. I really wish it had some physical controls. What's more infuriating is the lack of a binnacle right in front of you. The older Model S & X have one, but supposedly the upcoming refresh is going to take it away. At least the F-35 has a helmet mounted display even if no HUD. I believe Musk's rationale is that when these cars become self driving, there will be no need of a binnacle or even a HUD.

149 points by edward 6y ago

Wow, how did the fact that the G-forces will make it difficult to use voice commands or to interact with a touch screen not kill these F35 cockpit features a long time ago?

medium_burrito 6y ago
First, I'm curious if they use a throat mike or something bone conducting. Second, given how shitty voice interfaces are, I'm shocked they would use them at all. I assume the military funds a lot of EEG research- that would be ideal here.
- stickydink 6y ago
  Not sure how much I'd trust my brain for this kind of thing... Thinking "I better not press that eject button!" might be problematic
  - rtkwe 6y ago
    Ejection isn't on the screen it's the big yellow loop between their legs. https://martin-baker.com/products/mk16-ejection-seat-f-35/ https://martin-baker.com/products/mk16-ejection-seat-f-35/
- etrautmann 6y ago
  EEG requires highly stable signals. G forces would make any EEG measurements extremely unreliable.
- jandrese 6y ago
  According to the article the author knows of no pilots that use the voice interface. Given how finicky they are I can't say I'm surprised. Maybe with modern pseudo-AI systems they could be reliable enough to depend on, but none of that is in military hardware specced out 20 years ago.
  - medium_burrito 6y ago
    If you used the nato phonetic alphabet maybe, ie shortcodes for voice???
    - jandrese 6y ago
      It would probably help, but there is still the enormous noise floor to contend with. Jet Fighters are unbelievably loud. I mean that literally. If you've never watched one take off you would think I'm exaggerating the noise level. It's hard to describe because most people have never experienced something that loud.
- scarier 6y ago
  >I'm curious if they use a throat mike or something bone conducting. No, and no. Just good, old-fashioned microphones and speakers. If you're lucky, you have a set of "communication ear plugs" wired up to your helmet so the speakers in your earcups aren't trying to compete with engine noise and your ear plugs.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
waiseristy 6y ago
These voice commands are usually just for changing radio settings and other non-essential functionality. Stuff that would be just as difficult to change with tactile switches in high G. The Eurofighter has been using a similar system since the 90's
mshockwave 6y ago
I only know some standard "anti-G" actions involve breathing really hard while keeping your lungs inflated. I guess that makes speaking more difficult?
JohnBooty 6y ago
To be really specific for those not aware, pilots need to do special breathing routines when under high g-forces. Deep, rapid breaths. They need to suck oxygen into their body as quickly and efficiently as possible to maintain consciousness, because the g-forces forces blood away from their heads and towards their legs and feet. Here's a "classic" video of a pilot successfully evading an unbelievable number of SAMs over Iraq. The rapid breathing might make you think he's panicking. Nope, he's got it 100% under control and is following training perfectly. Though I'm sure he certainly needed a drink after making it home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUjX1RntqVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUjX1RntqVw There's also sort of a method of flexing their thighs that they learn. Restricts blood flow to the legs, so there's more blood for the rest of the body. That's a bit of an athletic endeavor in and of itself. Try flexing your thighs... now hold them that way for 5, 10, 20 minutes. Yikes. Anyway, how the hell could you even bark out voice commands while doing that sort of breathing!?!?

dmix 6y ago

> two MFDs with the classic 20 pushbuttons around the outside MFD = multi-functional display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-function_display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-function_display There's always acronyms in these sort of posts that I get to learn. And probably relevant to this: > Something that has been lost in all glass cockpits is the tactile feel of pressing buttons and knowing you got a response As I'm assuming they all went touch screen

stretchcat 6y ago
I wonder if they've considered wearable haptics. A little buzzer somewhere in their flight suit might provide pilots with 'a button was pushed' confirmations. Maybe that would be too distracting though.
- banana_giraffe 6y ago
  I've missed notifications on my phone on long flights because I didn't feel the buzzer. I can't imagine a fighter jet is more conducive to feeling a buzzer than a commercial airline. Honestly, I'm amazed the buttons around the edge of the screen aren't context aware buttons based off which screen a non-touchscreen display is showing.
- jandrese 6y ago
  It would probably be a little hard to feel when you're already getting buzzed constantly by the turbine engines and airflow.
  - stretchcat 6y ago
    True... maybe if they could get buzzers in the fingertips of the gloves... maybe. You're probably right though, the vibrations of the aircraft would drown it all out.
- scarier 6y ago
  The issue is less the confirmation that a thing happened and more the ability to locate the right thing to begin with. It's easy to count buttons by feel and be sure you have the right one, but almost impossible to locate an arbitrary part of a touchscreen without looking at it.

visviva 6y ago

> At present I am pressing the wrong part of the screen about 20% of the time in flight due to either mis-identification, or more commonly by my finger getting jostled around in turbulence or under G. That seems... bad, but also totally unsurprising.

waiseristy 6y ago
I'm surprised there isn't more hand rests used in these applications, similar to how the Dragon capsule has those finger "shelves" for the touch panels. Would make accurate touch input at least slightly easier
- jandrese 6y ago
  Yeah, this seems like a fairly easy workaround. A possible limitation is the cramped cockpit may literally not have enough room, your knees might hit the rests when working the rudder. Maybe if it were a flip-down thing where you could rest your hand when needed, but also bounce it out of the way when its not needed.
- t0mas88 6y ago
  Some general aviation planes have this, I've only used one during a short test flight in a simulator but it seemed to work quite well.
- scarier 6y ago
  Hand rests are only half the problem--even with a totally steady finger, it's tough to consistently find a small area on a touchscreen (and that's even ignoring the level of customization the F-35 allows) without looking at it. The author wasn't joking when he talked about inputting coordinates without looking at the control panel, and I expect it to take some massive advancements in haptics before we can do anything similar with touchscreens.
pmontra 6y ago
The author adds > think how much easier it is to type on a smartphone with your thumbs versus trying to stab at a virtual keyboard on a large tablet with just your index finger. My experience typing on a touch screen on bumpy roads or even a seemingly smooth highway at normal speed (as passenger of course) is that I miss a lot of keys, even if I grab my phone with two hands and I type with thumbs, which are a little too wide. Luckily I learned to swype and that works much better because of the constant contact with the screen. Fingers can't jump away. Still, getting shifted characters right is a problem. A physical keyboard is much better in that environment.

dirtyid 6y ago

https://i.redd.it/z9tejhhbg6931.jpg https://i.redd.it/z9tejhhbg6931.jpg This is way more sparse and streamlined than I thought. Wonder how big the manual for flight simulator game would be. Some video of UI in action on simulator. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSy8DcLaRDo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSy8DcLaRDo Are there any design documentations for UX/UI for military hardware? Is there a name for this style. Is it actually as functional as it looks? I wonder how these designers feel about dealing with military powerpoints.

nickff 6y ago
There are many design guidelines and studies for A&D (aerospace and defense); everything from which typeface to use, to how to display quantities and directions. I am not away of any comprehensive style guide or all-encompassing name for it.
mhh__ 6y ago
> Wonder how big the manual for flight simulator game would be. One manual for the F-14B is about 1k pages, so I would assume this would clock in significantly more than that due to the added capabilities (in information at least, possibly not pages due to the F-14 being pre-HOTAS and things like that http://server.3rd-wing.net/public/Ked/natops%20F14B.pdf http://server.3rd-wing.net/public/Ked/natops%20F14B.pdf
pugworthy 6y ago
Looking at the picture, that's surprisingly sparse.
svachalek 6y ago
As an intern 25+ years ago I had an assignment to draw up mocks for a new UH-1N interface based on pilot feedback. There were a lot of rules (I think all under the umbrella of "MIL-SPEC"), but I think the one that sunk in the most was that the design had to work in monochrome. Depending on shades and colors breaks the design for the color-blind but also ruins interactions in bad lighting conditions, wearing helmets, etc. It was a bigger, bolder look than was common on desktop computers, and I've always personally loved the style. There was a brief rise of similar rules in the civilian world as things moved mobile and we had to work on small screens with big fingers, but the direction now is to try to remove anything that might hint of interaction from the screen entirely. (Not a fan of this myself!) I've been in civilian work pretty much ever since so I have no idea how things have changed since then. Edit: on second glance I think a lot of the same principles are still in effect. While colorful I'm not sure that anything depends on reading the color, and seen from the pilot's chair it probably isn't all that crowded.

blhack 6y ago

It’s infuriating trying to use the touch screen in my wife’s minivan to change the radio station. I can’t imagine the frustration trying to use a touch screen to fly a fighter jet. More buttons please!

nickff 6y ago
There are lots of buttons and switches on the throttle and stick. Most modern western fighters are designed for HOTAS (hands on throttle and stick) operation, where the pilot never takes their hands off the throttle and stick during combat.
topspin 6y ago
> I can’t imagine the frustration trying to use a touch screen to fly a fighter jet. A war plane is something you have to operate while it's burning, or while you're bleeding on it, or while you can't see properly because it's full of smoke or someone just blinded you with a laser. The adoption of touch screens in this sort of cockpit seems misguided. Particularly for anything related to controlling comms or navigation.
- Retric 6y ago
  That’s really not how we design modern jet fighters. Air combat involves a huge number of tradeoffs and ejecting is now the correct response to a wide range of issues. For example, the F-35 so engine so engine failure is likely to result in a lost aircraft. It’s basically been decided that we are going to spend silly money keeping a small number of absolutely cutting edge aircraft flying rather than thousands if not tens of thousands of of likely more efficient but less capable possibly drone aircraft. PS: To be clear it’s possible their making the correct choice. I personally doubt it, but I don’t have access to the kind of classified documents to justify things in one way or another. An effective labor weapon for example might render vastly cheaper drone fleets ineffective.
  - jki275 6y ago
    No, the post above is exactly correct. Ejecting from an aircraft is an absolute last resort, and you stand a good chance of dying or being badly injured if you have to do it, and even if you survive the ejection, the parachute ride, and the landing, it's a better than even chance you're going to be captured and beaten, tortured, or killed on the ground. That's if you land on land of course -- if you land in the water you might just drown or never be found.

cccc4all 6y ago

F-35 is a slush fund for politicians and Military Industrial Entertainment Technology sector. $1.5 Trillion and counting.

d_silin 6y ago

You can learn quite a lot about aviation UI experience from civilian airliners' instruments. I did work a little bit with Boeing-777X ones. It is not great, actually. PFD (primary flight displays) are cluttered and information-noisy. HUD is a much better tool for flying experience. Fortunately for civilian pilots, this is becoming more common now. FMS (flight management system) has all the usability of IBM mainframes from 1960s and about the same performance. The tasks that pilot have to do before the flight are rather simple: you have to input weather conditions, aircraft load and waypoints for autopilot. But with even the most modern FMS it is a tedious and frustrating process, you have non-intuitive control flow and non-qwerty keyboard. Also all text-based, non-graphical interface. The better parts of aicraft UI are EICAS/ECAM (engine information and alerts) - they are both useful and intuitive to understand, with emphasis on graphical indication. A lot of hard to use bits are not from any technology limitations - modern aircraft displays are rather capable, but from the decades of industry legacy and expensive certifications required for any change.

d_silin 6y ago
To elaborate on my point. Arcade flight and space simulators have probably the optimal possible UI for "aviate/navigate/communicate" activities.
t0mas88 6y ago
Ask any pilot what the most complex part is about switching aircrafts and getting a new type rating. It's never the way the plane handles, is always either remembering the mandatory systems knowledge or how to use the FMS. I flew along on a small private jet recently, their system was 10x easier to understand and more capable than the typical airliner... So it is possible, probably even at a lower cost.
- mshockwave 6y ago
  are private jets under different regulations (rules)?
  - bdavis__ 6y ago

tra3 6y ago

I upgraded my car's stereo and it went from a knob for volume control to two small buttons. Hate it. It was difficult enough to find stereo with dedicated volume buttons. The rest of the functionality is via touch. Not a fan. I've never driven a BWM, but I believe they have a knob beside the shifter that allows you to go through the menus.. that feels like a much better system.

t0mas88 6y ago
They do, and also a physical volume knob that you can find and turn without looking at it. When I had a rental Renault that had everything on a touchscreen I thought "cool, looks modern!" when I looked at it stationary. And then totally hated it after 5 minutes of driving because it is so much worse to use on the road than the BMW system with actual buttons and the controller you can use blindly.
- jeromenerf 6y ago
  Renault cars have audio controls behind the right hand side of the steering wheel, alongside the touchscreen. It works fine and you keep your hands on the wheel.
  - t0mas88 6y ago
    Not sure this one had, it was a very basic clio. With another user interface decision that baffled me... The button to enable cruise control was under the central armrest, and if pressed the wrong way would enable a speed limit instead of cruise. Never seen another brand put cruise control under your right elbow instead of somewhere on the wheel.
    - elSidCampeador 6y ago
      Aah the French and their quirky sense of design
aidenn0 6y ago
My 2018 Mazda has a touchscreen, but 100% of the functionality can be done with physical buttons. It's the best interface for a car center-stack I've used on any car in the past 15 years or so.

waiseristy 6y ago

Alright, HN. Some required listening for you : The Harrier : https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/episodes/056-av-8-harrier/ https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/episodes/056-av-8-harrie... The F35 : https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/episodes/078-f-35-lightning-ii/ https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/episodes/078-f-35-lightn... The Eurofighter (for their short discussion on the voice commands): https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/episodes/058-eurofighter-typhoon/ https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/episodes/058-eurofighter...

snide 6y ago

I play a lot of Digital Combat Simulator, which models a lot of these planes. At first I was interested in shooting things, then I was interested in the flying, but in the end I learned I was most interested in the computer systems and how these games are mostly virtual simulations of old computers. It's fun to see what changed over the years and between cultures. The MiGs are completely different than their Western counterparts. How you navigate from point to point is often completely different. It's also interesting how durable the UX of MFDs were in cockpit design. When I went for my GA license, it was funny to see how many newer models of planes had moved to "glass" cockpits. It some ways, it felt like putting wifi on your fridge. Most of the GA planes folks fly were made in the 70s.

unoti 6y ago
Agreed! If the information in this article is even slightly interesting to you, then you owe it to yourself to spend some time with Digital Combat Simulator. In there you can get first-hand experience with the Harrier and the F/A 18 discussed in the article. You will spend a lot of time with the cockpits and start to develop your own affinity for things in the cockpit, and develop your own ideas about what you like and what you don't. Do a Google Images search for "DCS FA18 cockpit" or "DCS Harrier cockpit" and you'll see that the real life photos are pretty much indistinguishable from the screenshots, if you take the word "DCS" out of the search term. Every switch and gauge are faithfully simulated, and you can use the real-life operating manuals to operate these simulators. There's a lot of overlap with a lot of the things I love about computer systems. It's fun to learn, and to operate systems, and to feel that feeling of mastery as you gain confidence in making the machines do your bidding. Those types of feelings are much the same (and different) between operating computers and operating aircraft systems. To a large extent these modern planes feels a lot like operating a big flying computer, at least in the simulators. This is also true of things like the Cessna G1000 glass cockpit in Flight Sim 2020.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  > DCS FA18 cockpit One thing that's particularly impressive about the F/A-18 is that the Spec available in DCS (give or take a few features) is almost the same as the first batch from the 80s UI wise. In 1983, serving alongside the almost completely analog/60s F-14, the F/A-18 had 3 pretty modern MFDs. Definitely more advanced than most Star Wars cockpits, for example.

gorgoiler 6y ago

I love how immediately obvious it is that the Harrier cockpit lets you see downwards. Also, the red button on the stick really brings home just how much flying these machine is like a flying a loaded gun.

Merad 6y ago
> I love how immediately obvious it is that the Harrier cockpit lets you see downwards. That's mostly the camera angle. The F/A-18 and F-35 cockpit shows have the camera positioned about where the pilot's head would be (looking straight ahead through the HUD) whereas the Harrier photo has the camera positioned higher looking down into the cockpit.
scarier 6y ago
Yeah, it's a fantastic cockpit. For what it's worth, just pressing either of the red buttons on the stick won't operate any of the weapons systems--there are plenty of other safety interlocks in place to prevent a bomb coming off accidentally.

ajcp 6y ago

Simple solution: each pilot gets the military equivalent of a stream deck[1] that is loaded with their own configuration. Have a mounting option in the cockpit and Bob's your uncle. 1. https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/stream-deck https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/stream-deck

heisenbergs 6y ago

> One of the biggest drawbacks is that you can’t brace your hand against anything whilst typing – think how much easier it is to type on a smartphone with your thumbs versus trying to stab at a virtual keyboard on a large tablet with just your index finger This is a common problem for large touch screens, that I've experienced for instance in Tesla's massive displays too. the way around it: always rest part of your hand against something stable, ie in the tesla wrap your pinky around the display and then use your thumb or index finger. For me it increased accuracy from 80% to 99%. This doesn't work if you need to touch the center of the screen, all other parts work great.

xnomad 6y ago

I'd hate to be a carrier pilot and the helmet fails on blue water ops, you can't land, only option is to go for a swim. And single engine too over water... hmmmm no thanks. No backup instrumentation either.

nabla9 6y ago
Carrier landings should move eventually to JPALS (all-weather landing system) in some time in the future. It's military Autoland that works even for carriers and amphibious assault ships). Drones will also be using it, I think.
scarier 6y ago
A lot of the references you use to land on carriers are outside the aircraft, and the process is becoming largely automated. Besides, we've been flying single-engine aircraft blue-water for decades--it's not THAT bad in the grand scheme of things...
kart23 6y ago
The carrier f-35 can hover. You can just line it up by sight.

joeblow21 6y ago

The biggest problem with the F35 is that there is a cockpit at all. The human immediately makes the platform less capable and 20x more expensive

starpilot 6y ago

He kinda buried the lede: > Having bashed the interface, the way this jet displays information to you is incredible. The sheer amount of situational awareness I gain from this aircraft and its displays is like nothing I’ve experienced before. The off-boresight helmet is much more accurate than legacy JHMCS systems and I find it clearer to read (although I still want a wide-angle HUD for flight and fight-critical data!). About the only thing missing from the whole cockpit is the lack of ‘feel’. The prevailing narrative on HN and elsewhere (that seems to be a US DoD disinfo campaign) is that the JSF is an overpriced, overcomplicated piece of junk. Then there are these murmurs (largely from actual operators) leaking the fact that the aircraft is actually "incredible."

blobbers 6y ago

I thought this was pretty interesting. The basic problem of lack of tactile feedback is one you can test easily by trying to type on on an iphone vs. an old school blackberry while riding a roller coaster. When you have something to brace against, it's just a lot easier to be stable. I'm surprised researchers haven't figured out a way to solve this in a better way (maybe it's a haptic screen that can be reconfigured... the way LED keyboards work) The 20% error rate the pilot describes seems... like a really really big problem.

keymone 6y ago

And then comes musk with neuralink. Oh boy imagine the number of zeroes on their contracts with the military.

FearNotDaniel 6y ago

> Something that has been lost in all glass cockpits is the tactile feel of pressing buttons and knowing you got a response – I found you could enter Lat/Longs by feel whilst looking out the window. This is something you definitely can’t do ‘on the glass’ on current jets. I also really miss this from the dumbphone era. I used to be able to type SMS texts by feel using a T9 keypad while walking down the street, and only occasionally have to check the screen to see what I wrote. Smartphone QWERTY makes this impossible.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> Smartphone QWERTY makes this impossible I can absolutely type in my iPhone without looking at it. I just typed this comment with zero visual contact with my phone and no edits. (EDIT: this is a weirdly divisive comment.)
- albertgoeswoof 6y ago
  M testing this out now, let’s see if I can dk it Edit: the answer is no
  - rjzzleep 6y ago
    I would agree with you from a personal perspective but my partner frequently does this on her Android. I personally find it creepy of her looking at me while obviously doing something else. I think I will never really get the hang of the mobile keyboard(though I tend to use touch swiping), because I just consider it inferior to any physical normal sized keyboard.
- harperlee 6y ago
  Good for you! That’s an awesome skill. The point is, tactile feedback is essential for doing that to most of us, not that 0 people can do it.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > not that 0 people can do it Everyone in my (much) younger sister’s age group can do this. They grew up on touch devices. You and I didn’t. Just a note that one group’s personal experiences shouldn’t be generalised to the point of describing others’ as “impossible.”

avipars 6y ago

Surprised that this was released... should be secretive

mrweasel 6y ago

I'm fascinated by the picture from inside the Harrier cockpit, it's very much inline with the interior I've seen from other fighter planes. It just looks grimy and worn down, and fighter planes always seem to look like that in the cockpit.

richajak 6y ago

Looking at those cockpit photos, I suddenly remember that I sat in F18 cockpit during one of the public military show. It is small, I barely fit into it, those pilots must be slim. Cockpit also looked a bit rundown/worn off, not sure the design itself or simply wear and tear. In conclusion, it is a meh. So unlike the image portrayed in Top Gun novie.

decafninja 6y ago

Tangent, but something similar is my main beef with the Tesla Model 3 (& Y), which otherwise would be the perfect candidate for my next car. I really wish it had some physical controls. What's more infuriating is the lack of a binnacle right in front of you. The older Model S & X have one, but supposedly the upcoming refresh is going to take it away. At least the F-35 has a helmet mounted display even if no HUD. I believe Musk's rationale is that when these cars become self driving, there will be no need of a binnacle or even a HUD.