News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Fighter pilot breaks down every button in an F-15 cockpit... by bch on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @06:22PM (#23707479)
What’s the consensus on interfacing w/ glass vs physical, esp with respect to haptics and usability in various conditions (warm/cold hands, gloves on/off, bright/dim lighting, combat situations...)?

Edit: /ht `mulmen for “combat” hint!

Re:Fighter pilot breaks down every button in an F-15 cockpit... by yutyut on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @08:54PM (#23708750)
I’ve flown birds with steam gauges and birds with glass cockpits. I’ve got about 800 hours in my current glass aircraft.

Here’s a photo that I didn’t take: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b7/75/6f/b7756f8346efff30b2f6...

You can see the MFD’s have buttons on the top and bottom used to navigate menus and sub menus. I found that after 100 or so hours I didn’t even have to read a menu’s title but rather through muscle memory knew the “keystrokes” required to get to it, even if it’s 3 or 4 sub-menus deep.

All of our ordnance and critical aircraft systems (starting engines, putting out fires, arming weapons, hyds, etc) are controlled by the little square buttons you see on the left and right of the MFD’s and the controls themselves contain shortcut buttons to allow us to perform common tasks without taking hands off the controls.

Glass is king but if something is coming off my aircraft or if I’m starting or shutting down an engine I want to touch a physical button.

Coming from a software background, I’m fairly impressed with the UX of the cockpit.

Re:Fighter pilot breaks down every button in an F-15 cockpit... by stevehawk on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @08:52PM (#23708726)
Touchscreens are taking over General aviation. Everyone has an opinion on it. It’s really nice in smooth conditions and terrible in any kind of thermal, chop, or turbulence as far as I’m concerned.
Re:Fighter pilot breaks down every button in an F-15 cockpit... by mulmen on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @07:25PM (#23708050)
This is a great question but you forgot under (or on!) fire.