Cameras enabling flight deck to have a look see at engine pods, landing gear, etc. — great.
All do-able technically and pictures could be a help to senior cabin crew in an emergency too...
Time taken to select an image and evaluate the scene precludes the usefulness of cameras in all emergencies though!
OK let me have my flight of fancy..
The camera wish list... select from below according to aircraft type
1 x each engine;
cowlings, fluid, fire
2 x wings;
flap condition and deployment, snow ice, deicing checks(?) fuel leaks
1 x elevators;
snow ice, deicing checks (?)
1 x nosegear;
tyre condition, deployment, brake fire.
1 x each main landing gear;
tyre condition, deployment, brake fire.
1 x thermal cam in cargo holds;
fire, security of cargo
1 x each passenger cabin;
general surveillance including doors.
2 x wingtip
clearance
1 x night/thermal/nose mounted forward looking;
horizon of last resort?
A good image of control surfaces of wings on wide bodied aircraft need 2 or three cameras per wing...
The issues of lighting, glare, shadow and reflection of challenging subjects such as black tyres and reflective fuselage can be mitigated by using new HDR (High Dynamic range) imaging technology.
To reduce cockpit workload, cameras could be grouped into five groups; landing gear, cargo, control surfaces, engines, cabin. Automatically pre-selected into a group of thumbnails on a touch screen according to the phase of flight. Overridden if smoke and fire sensors in hold or engines are activated, whereby relevant cameras would be selected on screen.
The pitots are so important (AF447).... is a dedicated pin size camera/s with led a bad idea?.. would a thermal/night vision "horizon camera" have helped the AF447 crew? once they were out of heavy cloud?
One has to say that an interior shot of the flight deck itself would be the least useful in the above list
