Re:Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls
by cerebellum42 on Wednesday April 01, 2020 @03:43AM
(#22746587)
Many switches are flipped once or twice on takeoff, then again before or after landing. Depending on the plane (small GA aircraft or airliner or anything inbetween) there could be 4 or 5 switches to flip in total before takeoff, or 30-40. One of the most ubiquitously used controls in aircraft are concentric rotary encoders though, with a button integrated in them if you press the top of the encoder. Those are used to do menu navigation in the GPS units used in many planes, or for altitude/heading selectors in autopilot units.
Worth mentioning that these days GPS units seem to be getting touchscreens but usually still aren't losing the physical buttons.
This raises a question: how many times do an average pilot actually flip a switch over their carrier?