Publicists and journalists like to talk HP because that’s a figure people can sorta relate to, but it’s not a very meaningful figure for jet propulsion.

Many airports in Europe, the Middle East, East Asia and Australia have a split airbridge which branches off into two doors to the plane. That way First and Business can board at the front, and Economy entirely bypasses these cabins.

That narrows it down. If I’m not mistaken again, it is a Douglas A-26/B-26 Invader. Not to be confused with the Martin B-26 Marauder which actually used the same engine.

Indeed. With some caveats, in critical phases of flight the human pilot’s attention is typically better spent looking at the bigger picture. Also, autoflight can fly the vehicle more precisely.

Gah. I’m not very good at the post war piston warbirds. Grumman F7F?

You make good points. I should have been more clear. Reading is ultimately about content, not format. This is not an excuse for poorly readable design, such as crap fonts and unclear screens. It means that the interface should be as transparent as possible so that the brain can absorb the text without too much…

Yep. Thanks for making me have to go into my browser history to delete the last entry. ;)

Because reading is ultimately about content, not format. Facing pages don’t make reading easier or more pleasurable apart from evoking nostalgia for paper books.

Her father is a big fan of the old red rubber eraser controller you used to find on laptops in the middle of the keyboard. He’s upset that you can’t really find those anymore and hates trackpads. (I’m ambivalent about them.

Not sure about touch screens, though they are encroaching on smaller aircraft cockpits. In larger aircraft, trackballs seem to be preferred. IMHO a trackball makes much more sense.

This is true. However there is no reason to have the circuit breakers on the main panel. So you move them off and massively declutter.

Hmmm. Twin engine piston I think. Doesn’t look like a DC-3, and the control wheels seem post-war. Any hints?

I found that giggleworthy as well. More seriously though, it might have to do with a safety requirement, or some overzealous marketing guy, or both.

Guarded switches and buttons are still used extensively on aircraft for either “you don’t want to press this by mistake” or the even more imporant “if you press this there is no undo.” I can’t imagine guarded switches will go away any time soon.

Modern airliners have tended to go more for a trackball style controllers than either mice of touchscreens. IMHO a trackball may be the best free form controller. Firmly attached so you can’t lose it and works in turbulence.

Even today in planes we use multiple screens and we can switch them so that the relevant data will always be displayed somewhere.

It’s not that complicated. On airliners we can switch either the screen used, or the input used. For example if the #1 air data system fails, the captain would go to the #3 system. On the other hand if one screen fails, we can use another screen for the relevant data.

Dreamchaser seems to have stolen the MCP (autopilot control panel) from a Boeing 777, while ironically Boeing has made a brand new interface for the Starliner.

Solid state interfaces like screens are way are way more reliable than knobs and switches. And even in 25 year old designs like the Airbus 330 you can switch between screens if there’s a failure either of the screen itself of the system(s) feeding it.

I’d say there are possibilities in computer storage. Either by “living” in a computer system or by having one’s “pattern” stored dormant in a computer and being reconstituted once at the destination.