Cockpit

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This article is about the flight deck of an aircraft. For other uses, see Cockpit (disambiguation).

VC-10 (1960s) The Vickers VC10 airliner featured an analogue cockpit, with old-style instruments.

Airbus A319 cockpit. Most Airbus cockpits are highly computerised glass cockpits featuring fly-by-wire technology. The control column has been replaced with an electronic sidestick.

A cockpit is the area usually nearer the front of a piloted aircraft from which a pilot controls the aircraft. The cockpit is also commonly referred to as the flight deck although that term can also refer to the flight deck on an aircraft carrier. Most modern cockpits are fully enclosed, except on some small aircraft, and cockpits on large airliners are also physically separated from the cabin.

Cockpit as a term for the pilot's compartment in an aircraft first appeared in 1914 and from about 1935 cockpit also came to be used informally to refer to the driver's seat of a car, especially a high performance one, and this is official terminology in Formula One. The term is most likely related to the sailing term for the coxswain's station in a Royal Navy ship, and later the location of the ship's rudder controls.

Image:Glider Cockpit.JPG

Typical modern single-seat glider cockpit, with a forward hinged canopy in the open position.

The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments, typically called an "instrument panel", and the controls which enable the pilot to fly the aircraft. In most large airliners, a door separates the cockpit from the passenger compartment(s). After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, measures have been taken by all major airlines to fortify the cockpit against unauthorized access by would-be hijackers.

On an airliner, the cockpit is usually referred to as the "flight deck." This term derives from its use by the RAF for the separate, upper platform where the pilot and co-pilot sat in large flying boats.

The first airplane with an enclosed cabin appeared as early as 1913 on Igor Sikorsky's airplane The Grand. However, during the 1920s there were many passenger aircraft in which the crew were open to the air while the passengers sat in a cabin. Military biplanes and the first single-engined fighters and attack aircraft also had open cockpits into the Second World War. Early airplanes with closed cockpits were the 1924 Fokker tri-motor, the 1926 Ford Tri-Motor, the 1927 Lockheed Vega, the Spirit of St. Louis, the 1931 Taylor Cub, German Junkers used as military transports, and the passenger aircraft manufactured by the Douglas and Boeing companies during the mid-1930s. Open-cockpit airplanes were almost extinct by the mid-1950s, with the exception of training planes and crop-dusters.

Cockpit windows may be equipped with a sun shield. Most cockpits have one or more windows which can be opened when the aircraft is on the ground. Nearly all glass windows in large aircraft have a Anti-reflective coating, and an internal heating element to melt ice. Smaller aircraft may be equipped with a transparent aircraft canopy.

Image:Robin.dr400slash500.g-rndd.arp.jpg

The cockpit of a Robin DR400/500

During the history of its development, the layout of the cockpit, especially in the military fast jet, has undergone an increasing degree of standardisation, both within and between aircraft different manufacturers and even different nations. One of the most important developments was the “Basic Six” pattern, later the “Basic T”, developed from 1937 onwards by the Royal Air Force, designed to optimise pilot instrument scanning.

Erogonomics and human factors concerns are playing an increasing role in the design of modern cockpits. The layout and function of cockpit displays controls are carefully considered to increase pilot situational awareness without causing information overload. In the past, many cockpits, especially in fighter aircraft, limited the size of the pilots that could fit into them. Now, cockpits are being designed to accommodate the 1st percentile female physical size and the 99th percentile male size.

In the design of the cockpit in a modern military fast jet, the traditional “knobs and dials“ associated with the cockpit are long gone. Instrument panels are now almost wholly replaced by electronic displays which are themselves often re-configurable to save space. While some hard-wired dedicated switches must still be used for reasons of integrity and safety, many traditional controls are replaced by multi-function re-configurable controls or so-called “soft keys”, Many controls are incorporated onto the stick and throttle to enable the pilot to maintain a head-up and eyes-out position – the so-called Hands On Throttle And Stick or HOTAS concept,. These controls may be then further augmented by new control media such as head pointing with a Helmet Mounted Sighting System or Direct Voice Input (DVI). New advances in auditory displays even allow for Direct Voice Output of aircraft status information and for the spatial localisation of warning sounds for improved monitoring of aircraft systems.