Modernism: Glass Cockpit

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Popular Science once had a similar picture on the cover of an old issue, asking “WHERE’S MY FLYING CAR?” While that day may never come, you can see we’re looking to the future:

Let me explain:  The basic goal of any publication for men is to help the reader become more like James Bond.  The other sections of Prolific Magazine deal with the style, fitness, wisdom, charm and culture–but wait, aren’t we forgetting something?  Ahhhh, yes.  The gadgets.  Life would be a lot more awesome if we had all of Bond’s technological assets.  Well, stop dreaming.  It turns out we can get pretty close.
“Catching Up With Concepts” is dedicated to informing you about the real-life, on-the-market technologies (both little and leviathan) that were once only the stuff of action movies and Cold War-era concept art.

In this first installment we’ll take a look at the “glass cockpit.”  Prior to the 1980s, aircraft displayed information to pilots with a mess of analog dials and gauges, making his job quite stressful.  Not only could the instruments be hard to read per se, but the jam-packed dashboard real estate meant that the pilot would have to constantly scan the whole mess to glean what information he needed to fly the plane.  In order to remedy this, NASA began to research and develop digital readouts that presented the information more clearly and intuitively.  By the 1990s, these multi-function displays (MFDs) were commonplace in commercial aircraft.

Then...

...and now.

Warplanes also got the treatment:

Then...

...and now.

This great stride has made the pilot’s job quite a bit easier, reducing eyestrain, improving reaction time, and just abating stress in general.  The best part, though, is that since the technology has become cheaper, it has found its way into even more personal niches.  Garmin, a manufacturer of GPS units and avionics, is the industry standard, and their G1000 units are available in new, small, general aviation aircraft such as the venerable Cessna 172 Skyhawk.

Out with the old...

...and in with the new!

BEHOLD, THE FUTURE!