HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an
aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines. ...
or
spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to spaceflight, fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including Telecommunications, communications, Earth observation satellite, Earth ...
, from which a pilot controls the aircraft. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the controls that enable the pilot to fly the aircraft. In most airliners, a door separates the cockpit from the
aircraft cabin An aircraft cabin is the section of an aircraft in which passengers travel. Most modern commercial aircraft are pressurized, as cruising altitudes are high enough such that the surrounding atmosphere is too thin for passengers and crew to bre ...
. After the
September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...
, all major
airline An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in which ...
s
fortified A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''face ...
their cockpits against access by hijackers.


Etymology

The word cockpit seems to have been used as a nautical term in the 17th century, without reference to cock fighting. It referred to an area in the rear of a ship where the cockswain's station was located, the cockswain being the pilot of a smaller "boat" that could be dispatched from the ship to board another ship or to bring people ashore. The word "cockswain" in turn derives from the old English terms for "boat-servant" (''coque'' is the French word for "shell"; and ''swain'' was old English for boy or servant). The midshipmen and
master's mate Master's mate is an obsolete rating which was used by the Royal Navy, United States Navy and merchant services in both countries for a senior petty officer who assisted the master. Master's mates evolved into the modern rank of Sub-Lieutenant in ...
s were later berthed in the cockpit, and it served as the action station for the ship's surgeon and his mates during battle. Thus by the 18th century, "cockpit" had come to designate an area in the rear lower deck of a warship where the wounded were taken. The same term later came to designate the place from which a sailing vessel is steered, because it is also located in the rear, and is often in a well or "pit".Oxford English Dictionary online
Cockpit
However, a convergent etymology does involve reference to cock fighting. According to the ''Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology'', the buildings in London where the king's cabinet worked (the
Treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or ...
and the Privy Council) were called the "Cockpit" because they were built on the site of a theater called ''The Cockpit'' (torn down in 1635), which itself was built in the place where a "cockpit" for cock-fighting had once stood prior to the 1580s. Thus the word Cockpit came to mean a control center. The original meaning of "cockpit", first attested in the 1580s, is "a pit for fighting cocks", referring to the place where
cockfight A cockfight is a blood sport, held in a ring called a cockpit. The history of raising fowl for fighting goes back 6,000 years. The first documented use of the ''word'' gamecock, denoting use of the cock as to a "game", a sport, pastime or ent ...
s were held. This meaning no doubt influenced both lines of evolution of the term, since a cockpit in this sense was a tight enclosure where a great deal of stress or tension would occur. From about 1935, ''cockpit'' came to be used informally to refer to the driver's cabin, especially in high performance cars, and this is officia
terminology
used to describe the compartment that the driver occupies in a
Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship ...
car. In an
airliner An airliner is a type of aircraft for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an ...
, the cockpit is usually referred to as the ''flight deck'', the term deriving from its use by the RAF for the separate, upper platform in large
flying boats A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged aircraft, fixed-winged seaplane with a hull (watercraft), hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a ...
where the pilot and co-pilot sat. In the USA and many other countries, however, the term cockpit is also used for airliners. The seat of a powerboat racing craft is also referred to as the cockpit.


Ergonomics

The first airplane with an enclosed cabin appeared in 1912 on the
Avro Type F The Avro Type F was an early single seat British aircraft from Avro. On 1 May 1912 it became the first aircraft in the world to fly with a completely enclosed cabin for the pilot as an integral part of the design. Design and development It wa ...
; however, during the early 1920s there were many passenger aircraft in which the crew remained 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, some as late as the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
when enclosed cockpits became the norm. The largest impediment to having closed cabins was the material used to make the windows. Prior to Perspex becoming available in 1933, windows were either safety glass, which was heavy, or cellulose nitrate (i.e.: guncotton), which yellowed quickly and was extremely flammable. In the mid-1920s many aircraft manufacturers began using enclosed cockpits for the first time. Early airplanes with closed cockpits include the 1924 Fokker F.VII, the 1926 German Junkers W 34 transport, the 1926 Ford Trimotor, the 1927 Lockheed Vega, the Spirit of St. Louis and the passenger aircraft manufactured by the Douglas and
Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and ...
companies during the mid-1930s. Open-cockpit airplanes were almost extinct by the mid-1950s, with the exception of training planes, crop-dusters and
homebuilt aircraft Homebuilt aircraft, also known as amateur-built aircraft or kit planes, are constructed by persons for whom this is not a professional activity. These aircraft may be constructed from "scratch", from plans, or from assembly kits.Armstrong, Kenn ...
designs. Cockpit windows may be equipped with a sun shield. Most cockpits have windows that can be opened when the aircraft is on the ground. Nearly all glass windows in large aircraft have an anti-reflective coating, and an internal heating element to melt ice. Smaller aircraft may be equipped with a transparent aircraft canopy. In most cockpits the pilot's control column or
joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. A joystick, also known as the control column, is the principal cont ...
is located centrally ( centre stick), although in some military fast jets the
side-stick __NOTOC__ A side-stick or sidestick controller is an aircraft control stick that is located on the side console of the pilot, usually on the righthand side, or outboard on a two-seat flightdeck. Typically this is found in aircraft that are equipp ...
is located on the right hand side. In some commercial airliners (i.e.: Airbus—which features the
glass cockpit A glass cockpit is an aircraft cockpit that features electronic (digital) flight instrument displays, typically large LCD screens, rather than the traditional style of analog dials and gauges. While a traditional cockpit relies on numerous mec ...
concept) both pilots use a side-stick located on the outboard side, so Captain's side-stick on the left and First-officer's seat on the right. Except for some helicopters, the ''right seat'' in the cockpit of an
aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines. ...
is the seat used by the
co-pilot In aviation, the first officer (FO), also called co-pilot, is the pilot who is second-in-command of the aircraft to the captain, who is the legal commander. In the event of incapacitation of the captain, the first officer will assume command ...
. The
captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
or pilot in command sits in the ', so that they can operate the throttles and other pedestal instruments with their
right hand In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjec ...
. The tradition has been maintained to this day, with the co-pilot on the right hand side. The layout of the cockpit, especially in the military fast jet, has undergone standardisation, both within and between aircraft, manufacturers and even nations. An important development was the "Basic Six" pattern, later the "Basic T", developed from 1937 onwards by the
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
, designed to optimise pilot instrument scanning. Ergonomics and Human Factors concerns are important in the design of modern cockpits. The layout and function of cockpit displays controls are designed to increase pilot situation 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 from the 1st
percentile In statistics, a ''k''-th percentile (percentile score or centile) is a score ''below which'' a given percentage ''k'' of scores in its frequency distribution falls (exclusive definition) or a score ''at or below which'' a given percentage falls ...
female physical size to the 99th percentile male size. In the design of the cockpit in a military fast jet, the traditional "knobs and dials" associated with the cockpit are mainly absent. 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". Controls are incorporated onto the stick and throttle to enable the pilot to maintain a head-up and eyes-out position – the Hands On Throttle And Stick or HOTAS concept,. These controls may be then further augmented by control media such as head pointing with a Helmet Mounted Sighting System or
Direct voice input Direct voice input (DVI), sometimes called voice input control (VIC), is a style of human–machine interaction "HMI" in which the user makes voice commands to issue instructions to the machine through speech recognition. In the field of milita ...
(DVI). Advances in auditory displays allow for Direct Voice Output of aircraft status information and for the spatial localisation of warning sounds for improved monitoring of aircraft systems. The layout of control panels in modern airliners has become largely unified across the industry. The majority of the systems-related controls (such as electrical, fuel, hydraulics and pressurization) for example, are usually located in the ceiling on an overhead panel. Radios are generally placed on a panel between the pilot's seats known as the pedestal. Automatic flight controls such as the
autopilot An autopilot is a system used to control the path of an aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft without requiring constant manual control by a human operator. Autopilots do not replace human operators. Instead, the autopilot assists the operator' ...
are usually placed just below the windscreen and above the main instrument panel on the glareshield. A central concept in the design of the cockpit is the
Design Eye Position In the design of human-machine user interfaces (HMIs or UIs), the Design Eye Position (DEP) is the position from which the user is intended to view the workstation for an optimal view of the visual interface. The Design Eye Position represents the ...
or "DEP", from which point all displays should be visible. Most modern cockpits will also include some kind of integrated warning system. In a 2013 comparative study of a number of novel methods for cockpit-user interaction,
touchscreen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is ofte ...
produced the largest number of "best scores".Stanton, N. A., Harvey, C., Plant, K. L. and Bolton, L., 2013, "To twist, roll, stroke or poke. A study of input devices for menu navigation in the cockpit", ''Ergonomic Abstracts'', Vol. 56 (4), pp. 590–611


Flight instruments

In the modern electronic cockpit, the electronic flight instruments usually regarded as essential are MFD, PFD, ND, EICAS, FMS/CDU and back-up instruments.


MCP

A
Mode control panel In aviation, the mode control panel (MCP) is an instrument panel that controls an advanced autopilot An autopilot is a system used to control the path of an aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft without requiring constant manual control by a ...
, usually a long narrow panel located centrally in front of the pilot, may be used to control heading, speed, altitude, vertical speed, vertical navigation and lateral navigation. It may also be used to engage or disengage both the autopilot and the autothrottle. The panel as an area is usually referred to as the "glareshield panel". MCP is a Boeing designation (that has been informally adopted as a generic name for the unit/panel) for a unit that allows for the selection and parameter setting of the different autoflight functions, the same unit on an Airbus aircraft is referred to as the FCU (Flight Control unit).


PFD

The
primary flight display A primary flight display or PFD is a modern aircraft instrument dedicated to flight information. Much like multi-function displays, primary flight displays are built around a Liquid-crystal display or CRT display device. Representations of olde ...
is usually located in a prominent position, either centrally or on either side of the cockpit. It will in most cases include a digitized presentation of the attitude indicator, air speed and altitude indicators (usually as a tape display) and the vertical speed indicator. It will in many cases include some form of heading indicator and ILS/VOR deviation indicators. In many cases an indicator of the engaged and armed autoflight system modes will be present along with some form of indication of the selected values for altitude, speed, vertical speed and heading. It may be pilot selectable to swap with the ND.


ND

A navigation display, which may be adjacent to the PFD, shows the route and information on the next waypoint, wind speed and wind direction. It may be pilot selectable to swap with the PFD.


EICAS/ECAM

The Engine Indication and Crew Alerting System (EICAS), used by Boeing and Embraer, or the Electronic Centralized Aircraft Monitor (ECAM), used by
Airbus Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft throughout the world. The company has three divisions: '' ...
, allow the pilot to monitor the following information: values for N1, N2 and N3, fuel temperature, fuel flow, the electrical system, cockpit or cabin temperature and pressure, control surfaces and so on. The pilot may select display of information by means of button press.


FMS/MCDU

The flight management system/control and/or display unit may be used by the pilot to enter and check for the following information: flight plan, speed control, navigation control, etc.


Back-up instruments

In a less prominent part of the cockpit, in case of failure of the other instruments, there will be a battery-powered integrated standby instrument system along with a magnetic compass, showing essential flight information such as speed, altitude, attitude and heading.


Aerospace industry technologies

In the U.S. the
Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...
(FAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...
) have researched the ergonomic aspects of cockpit design and have conducted investigations of airline industry accidents. Cockpit design disciplines include Cognitive science,
Neuroscience Neuroscience is the science, scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a Multidisciplinary approach, multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, an ...
,
Human–computer interaction Human–computer interaction (HCI) is research in the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people ( users) and computers. HCI researchers observe the ways humans interact with computers and design ...
, Human Factors Engineering,
Anthropometry Anthropometry () refers to the measurement of the human individual. An early tool of physical anthropology, it has been used for identification, for the purposes of understanding human physical variation, in paleoanthropology and in various atte ...
and Ergonomics. Aircraft designs have adopted the fully digital "glass cockpit". In such designs, instruments and gauges, including navigational map displays, use a user interface markup language known as ARINC 661. This standard defines the interface between an independent cockpit display system, generally produced by a single manufacturer, and the avionics equipment and user applications it is required to support, by means of displays and controls, often made by different manufacturers. The separation between the overall display system, and the applications driving it, allows for specialization and independence.


See also

*
Bridge (nautical) The interior of the bridge of the Sikuliaq'', docked in Ketchikan, Alaska file:Wheelhouse of Leao Dos Mares.jpg, Wheelhouse on a tugboat, topped with a flying bridge The bridge, also known as the pilothouse or wheelhouse, is a room or platfo ...
* Cab (locomotive) * Control room * Command center


Notes


''The Aircraft Cockpit – from stick-and-string to fly-by-wire'', by L. F. E. Coombes, 1990, Patrick Stephens Limited, Wellingborough.


* ttp://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/?product_id=731 ''Control In The Sky: The Evolution and History of The Aircraft Cockpit'', by L. F. E. Coombes, 2005, Pen and Sword Books Limited, Barnsley.


References


External links


A380 cockpit


{{Authority control Aircraft components Articles containing video clips 1912 introductions