How flat panels displays are changing everything -- including flying
Tags: HDTV, LCD, Plasma, Aviation, Flying
One of the reasons I write about HDTV and flat-panel displays is because I believe they are technologies that, like the personal computer, will fundamentally change much of how we see and experience the world. I was leafing through a copy of Flying magazine recently and was caught off guard by how much flat panels have changed private aircraft instrument panels. When I learned to fly about 30 years ago, the panel of a Cessna 172 or Piper Cherokee was full of vacuum-powered guages and between two and six radios; it looked like this. Now, with high brightness LCDs and integrated electronic navigation systems, it looks like this.
That's the latest Garmin G1000 integrated avionics system, which replaces the primary instruments of the aircraft. What used to be the primary guages are now backup instruments arrayed underneath the main multi-function displays. Ten years ago, glass cockpits were the province of multi-million-dollar airliners. Now, they are available as standard equipment in a Cessna Skyhawk. But at least now, when your passenger says, "Gee, that instrument panel is as complicated as a Boeing 777", they aren't far off.
Thanks to Garmin for supplying the G1000 panel photograph for the Cessna. They also are supplying similar systems for Mooneys, Diamond aircraft, and a host of others. Flat-panels: they aren't just for airliners any more.
One of the reasons I write about HDTV and flat-panel displays is because I believe they are technologies that, like the personal computer, will fundamentally change much of how we see and experience the world. I was leafing through a copy of Flying magazine recently and was caught off guard by how much flat panels have changed private aircraft instrument panels. When I learned to fly about 30 years ago, the panel of a Cessna 172 or Piper Cherokee was full of vacuum-powered guages and between two and six radios; it looked like this. Now, with high brightness LCDs and integrated electronic navigation systems, it looks like this.
That's the latest Garmin G1000 integrated avionics system, which replaces the primary instruments of the aircraft. What used to be the primary guages are now backup instruments arrayed underneath the main multi-function displays. Ten years ago, glass cockpits were the province of multi-million-dollar airliners. Now, they are available as standard equipment in a Cessna Skyhawk. But at least now, when your passenger says, "Gee, that instrument panel is as complicated as a Boeing 777", they aren't far off.
Thanks to Garmin for supplying the G1000 panel photograph for the Cessna. They also are supplying similar systems for Mooneys, Diamond aircraft, and a host of others. Flat-panels: they aren't just for airliners any more.
posted by Carl Howe at
6:43 PM
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