Technically, they’re using this stillness to sense two important things. Before flight, they require some time (typically a few minutes) at the gate when the aircraft is completely still. There’s something else remarkable about inertial systems. And they can sense gravity, which tell us which way is up, for example-particularly useful when flying in cloud. They can help us distinguish our own speed and direction from those of the wind that carries us. Modern inertial systems have a variety of important functions in addition to navigation. Some of this technology was developed in part for the Apollo programme, and it was one of the most revolutionary technologies on board the Boeing 747-100 when it first took flight in 1969. Inside the black box, each of these three powerful digital brains just knows. Think of that - no GPS satellite signals are needed, no star sightings, nothing. Once configured before each flight, they help us know where we are without any reference to the outside world. GPS is an amazing innovation, to be sure, but to me inertial reference systems are far cooler. These are the switches for what’s probably the most remarkable bit of aerospace technology you’ve never heard of. The mode selectors for the Inertial Reference Systems The light goes out, the existing route is replaced by the modified one, which the plane will follow exactly. When we’re satisfied with the changes we’ve prepared, we press the key to ‘execute’ our changes. So, as we prepare the changes, a light on the Execute key illuminates. Naturally, we want to be able to prepare and check the modification to the route in the on-board computers before the plane actually starts to follow it. The route in the computer is checked before take-off, of course.īut in flight, we often need to modify the route - perhaps we’ve been given a shortcut by air traffic control, or perhaps the landing runway at our destination has changed. That’s true whether we’re flying the aeroplane manually or through the automatic pilot. In flight, we follow a route that’s been carefully programmed into the flight computers. Here are five of the coolest buttons and switches to ask about on your next visit to a cockpit. Many of their functions are less obvious than the control column, a little more subtle than the landing gear, and they’re not always easy for visitors to appreciate.īut each controls an utterly ingenious bit of technology or a carefully crafted aspect of what in the wider tech world is now called ‘user experience’. I point out the throttles or thrust levers, the flaps (which effectively change the wing’s size and shape, to allow us to fly more slowly) and the landing gear lever (as important a lever as there could possibly be).īut there are hundreds of other buttons, controls, switches and levers in a complex airliner like the Boeing 747.
When I show you around the cockpit in that book, I focus mostly on the big-ticket items of obvious importance-the control wheel (for banking left or right) the control column (to quote a Father Ted-inspired flight instructor of mine: push forward on the column, and cows get bigger pull back, and cows get smaller).
747 COCKPIT HOW TO
In a recent book, How to Land a Plane, I talk about how planes work-how they stay up in the sky, and how pilots control them. How do we ever learn which does what? (That’s our job.) How many buttons are there, anyway? (Hundreds.) And which ones are the most important? These questions often have to do with the numerous controls, buttons, and switches that line nearly every surface in the cockpit. When we do welcome visitors to the cockpit, there’s usually time for photographs and for a few questions. Ask your cabin crew if you’re interested - and no, you don’t have to be a kid, or be travelling with children, to do so.) (Cockpit visits are sometimes possible before departure, depending on our workload otherwise, they’re often possible after arrival at the gate.
These interactions are particularly fun when they take place in our office - that is, in the cockpit itself. One of the greatest pleasures of being an airline pilot - aside from the simple joy of flying - is the opportunity to meet some of the travellers on board our flights.
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