Hello, all--
I've had the chance to fly about six hours in Boomerang,
including two long cross-countries (on which I saw around 250 KTAS on 20
US gph!). At the same time, I had the chance to watch Burt continually
fiddling with his Powerbook while I flew the airplane...not to mention
one complete crash the first time I rode in it. (Crash of the computer,
not the airplane--although the landing gear folded the first time _Burt_
flew it...)
My impression of the computer system is that this is still a beta test
version; among
other things, the current bar graph displays all run from left to right,
with upper and lower bars for L and R engines, rather than perhaps a more
logical arrangement of L and R "thermometer" pairs for each parameter
(apparently coming in the next program rewrite). It's interesting to
note that while some jets (Citation, Challenger, Rolls-powered versions
of older 747s) use similar (electromechanical) vertical bar
instrumentation, all the current fancy EICAS systems in airplanes like
Airbus 340, B747-400, and similar "Atari Ferrari" types all use the fancy
CRTs and fast graphics processors...to draw pictures of old-fashioned
round "steam gauges" for the pilots' delectation! I'd assume a lot of
expensive human factors research went into that, too. A further point
against numerical displays is that the typical pilot can't visualize
numbers greater than ten unless he takes off his shoes...
Finally, I happen to like flying with polarized sunglasses, which
made the Powerbook hard to see in any case...and in the front two seats
of Boomerang, which is a fair bit roomier than Europa, the Powerbook took
up a significant bit of space.
I still think glass panels show a lot of promise--but I think
they'll work best with purpose-built displays (not all the cheap even
when adapted from generic hardware) and very carefully written software.
Moreover, if they're going to be used as primary instrumentation for IFR,
they'll probably require mechanical instruments as backup---so I'll just
stick with round dials for Europa A37.
regards, Peter Lert
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