PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Helicopter Cockpits
View Single Post
Old 9th July 2005 | 21:21
  #14 (permalink)  
Thud_and_Blunder
50 Countries Visited
25 Anniversary
 
Joined: Aug 2000
: ATP+Mil
Posts: 1,629
Likes: 206
From: SW England
(really must get to bed - amazing how addictive this is when you've not had a working 'puter for over a week...)

Anyone who thinks the EC135 is up there in the "best cockpits" league clearly hasn't had the chance to compare with something like the MD902. As a company instructor has been known to opine, "the pilot definitely wasn't in the office the week Eurocopter put the 135 cockpit together". Lovely screens and all that, but look where the controls for adjusting the BarAlt/ DH are to be found. Roof panel? Should've gone out with Sea Kings and other 60s antiques. That SHED BUS switch is beautifully positioned for Coriolis disorientation. Nice twist-grips, shame about the spring-loading/narrow arc-of-travel/ captions every time it goes through neutral. FADEC switches - why? Double AHHRS (sp? - it is late...) is lovely - if you're the sort of pilot who reads a newspaper SPIFR instead of watching the dials - but an autopilot only an engineer could love ("what's it doing now?").

Decent cockpit? - Like I said, give me a 902, but preferably one built to last (with an IIDS screen that doesn't self-destruct and windows that don't depart autonomously).
Thud_and_Blunder is offline  
Reply