5 ms·
An interesting trip down memory lane for those of us who learned to fly later. But he went and ended it with a bunch of "old man yells at cloud" nonsense. Yes
by psunavy03 3y ago
An interesting trip down memory lane for those of us who learned to fly later. But he went and ended it with a bunch of "old man yells at cloud" nonsense. Yes, airmanship needs to be cultivated in an era of glass cockpits, but that doesn't mean the glass isn't head-and-shoulders above the steam gauges. The only reason the steam gauges existed were because they were the best we could do at the time. Hopefully the next step is incorporating augmented reality.
- seabass-labrax 3y agoI read the final part as more nostalgic than scornful of modern equipment; after all, the author does acknowledge that each generation of radio equipment was more capable than the previous. It's not surprising though that after fifty years, one might feel a little out of one's depth with more modern equipment - reduced to being "child of the magenta", as the author puts it. I don't know; I just think one can afford to be more charitable towards anachronisms when someone's been at it for half a century :) Augmented reality on the flight deck is nearly there... The Airbus A220 (also known as the Bombardier C-Series) may optionally be purchased with heads-up-displays. Similarly, the Dash 8 Q400 can be retrofitted with a HUD. Curiously, HUDs are actually required for some instrument procedures in the USA.
- psunavy03 3y agoHUDs are ancient history. They have been around for decades and JHMCS has been around on the military side for over a decade. I'm honestly surprised some level of HoloLens 2/Magic Leap 2-esque AR hasn't been demoed yet for the civilian side.
- seabass-labrax 3y agoThat would certainly be useful for enhancing situational awareness, particularly for TCAS. I can imagine a floating red circle around a conflicting flight with a line extending out in the direction of flight (which is rather difficult to judge by sight alone). Too much would be distracting, of course, but I can't see any reason why it couldn't be developed with as much care and testing as traditional avionics are.
- buildsjets 3y agoI’m just here to plug my buddy John’s homebuilt/experimental/open-source HUD, primarily intended for VFR use as an ADS-B traffic display. https://github.com/JohnMarzulli/StratuxHud https://github.com/JohnMarzulli/StratuxHud
- seabass-labrax 3y agoThat looks amazing! Especially so that it uses the real ADS-B data, rather than relying on an internet-based relay.
- ryandrake 3y agoYea, a few old-timers still complain about pilots being dependent on The Magenta Line, but I would trade my paper-and-pencil flight planning and my E6B any day for a GPS moving map and ADS-B In. ADS-B alone has been a massive game-changer for traffic awareness with basically no downside (aside from cost to outfit the fleet). Modern engine management systems also allow you to fine tune your operation of the machine to a degree that was impossible to do "by ear" in the old days.
- ramesh31 3y agoI'd liken it to automotive advancements as well. I would never even consider taking a long road trip in a carbureted classic car. Yet GA pilots are flying with the equivalent engine technology to this day. Total madness.
- WalterBright 3y agoDuring the Vietnam war, my dad was stationed at an air base in Alaska. For the buildup for the war, they needed more transport aircraft. So a lot of piston engine machines were resurrected from the boneyard and pressed into service. But the mechanics could not get them to produce the rated power. They were all set up exactly according to the manual. Finally, the AF resurrected a few geezer mechanics from WW2. These fellows simply listed to the engines, asked for a screwdriver, and had them working properly with a turn of a screw.