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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 0453.PDF
8 April 1955 453 RADICALLY NEW COCKPIT DESIGN U.S. Navy's Television Instrumentation ARESEARCH programme is now under way in America—under the overall guidance of the U.S. Navy Bureau ofAeronautics—which should lead to the appearance in about three years' time of a completely new type of cockpit layout andinstrument presentation. Some aspects of this work were des- cribed in our issue of July 9th last year, when informationwas given concerning a pictorial attitude and course presentation tried out in a F9F-5 Panther. This represented an attempt tosimplify the panel as it then stood, by combining the functions of compass and artificial horizon in one easily read dial. It washinted that work was in progress on a very much more advanced concept which would radically affect design. It is the first result of this programme which has now been dis-closed by the U.S. Navy and the companies concerned in the work. Prime contractor and the co-ordinator of the instrumenta-tion side is Douglas Aircraft, El Segundo Division. The pro- posed cockpit, as the accompanying photographs show, is radi-cally new. All controls, including the stick (much abbreviated) and throttle, are on a console resembling an ordinary school desk,in the centre of which is mounted a circular plan position screen. Most of the flight-instrument indications are presented on a trans-parent vertical screen before the pilots eyes. Both the horizontal and vertical screens are examples of a recentdevelopment by the Electronics division of Willys Motors, Inc., in competition with a number of other firms. The vertical screenis in fact a television screen utilizing a new type of flat television tube consisting of a phosphor screen hermetically sealed betweentwo plates of glass. An electron gun, very closely focused, pro- jects along the screen a beam which is deflected as required byvoltages applied and deflector plates. It is thus possible to obtain high definition and brightness with 2,000 lines—better thancommercial television. The screen is transparent and does not interfere with the pilot's vision while he is flying V.F.R. A type of map presentation of the ground is given on the hori-zontally mounted P.P.I, screen, together with navigational details, distance and vector-to-base information and indication of remain-ing fuel. This information can be selected by switches. The indications strictly concerned with flight attitude, speed andheight will appear on the vertical screen, with some new form of presentation—probably as an actual picture of the groundahead. This is perhaps the most comprehensive cockpit design projectso far published, and, typically, it is a U.S. Navy undertaking. Although American cockpit design in general has for some yearsbeen of a very high order, instrument layout has not kept pace. The U.S. Navy has generally been in the forefront in such schemesand was first to adopt a standard blind-flying panel layout. A similar arrangement has now also been standardized by theU.S.A.F. Previously, there was no equivalent to the R.A.F. stand- ard panel and in many ways the performance of conventional Side view of the Douglas mock-up for the new cockpit layout, showing the pilot holding the two basic controls, throttle and stick, and looking at and through the flat television tube. The plan-position tube is between his hands. A simple warning signal indicates "Power unsafe" in case of any one of a series of failures drastically affecting the engine. American flight instruments is not as good as that of British-madeequivalents. The control-lever layout proposed for the new U.S. Navycockpit must bring with it basic problems in control transmission design, not least on the aerodynamic side. This, however, will beconsiderably eased since the general introduction of powered controls has removed the need formany of the bulky mechanical adjuncts of the old systems.One problem which will certainly The initial simplification of the panel tested in a Grumman Panther and described in "Flight" of July 9th, 1954. The pictorial heading and attitude indicator is surrounded by combined Mach meter/A.S.I., veeder altimeter and radio altimeter, among others. The large dial on the right is described as a "self-contained automatic rho- theta (distance/azimuth) indicator." Warning lights illuminate written notices, at top right, to indicate malfunctions of various kinds. have to be considered in the new lay-out is escape for the pilot. The "desk" is so arranged, in the mock-ups at least, that there is no clearance for the pilot's knees in the event of use haying to be made of anupward-ejection seat; downward ejection will have to be provided for, and this will call for careful arrangement of units, close to thecockpit, such as nosewheel and armament. It is not considered likely that an escape capsule is in view, since the weight of capsulesso far designed calls for a parachute too large to deploy safely at any reasonable post-ejection falling speed. A prime factor in the television screen instrumentation arrange-ments will evidently be reliability, but no further information is yet available to indicate the steps being taken in this direction. SOVIET HIGHER PROMOTIONS DY recent decree, a rank which has hitherto not existed in the** Soviet Air Force—Chief Marshal of the Air Force—has been conferred upon Marshal of Aviation Pavel FedorovichZhigarev. Colonel-General of the Air Force Sergei Ignatyevich Rudenko is accorded the rank of Marshal of the Air Force, asis Colonel-General of the Air Force Vladimir Alexandrovich Sudets. The new Soviet Chief Marshal of the Air Force—Zhigarev—was appointed C-in-C. of the Soviet Air Force in July 1950. He is also a "candidate member" of the CentralCommittee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—the governing body in the country. Rudenko was referred to in a Moscow announcement last yearas Chief of Staff of the Soviet Air Force. Sudets was last mentioned during 1944, as C-in-C. of the Air Force, UkranianFront, and as Air Force Chief of Staff in 1947.
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