Cockpit Engineering

Cockpit Engineering provides an understandable introduction to cockpit systems and a reference to current concepts and research. The emphasis throughout is on the cockpit as a totality, and the book is accordingly comprehensive. The first chapter is an overview of how the modern cockpit has evolved to protect the crew and enable them to do their job. The importance of psychological and physiological factors is made clear in the following two chapters that summarise the expectable abilities of aircrew and the hazards of the airborne environment. The fourth chapter describes the stages employed in the design of a modern crewstation and the complications that have been induced by automated avionic systems. The subsequent chapters review the component systems and the technologies that are utilized. Descriptions of equipment for external vision - primarily the windscreen, canopy and night-vision systems - are followed by pneumatic, inertial and electro-mechanical instruments and the considerations entailed in laying out a suite of displays and arranging night-lighting. Separate chapters cover display technology, head-up displays, helmet-mounted displays, controls (including novel controls that respond directly to speech and the activity of the head, eye and brain), auditory displays, emergency escape, and the complex layers of clothing and headgear. The last chapter gives the author's speculative views on ideas and research that could profoundly alter the form of the crewstation and the role of the crew. Although the focus of the book is on combat aircraft, which present the greatest engineering and ergonomic challenges, Cockpit Engineering is written for professional engineers and scientists involved in aerospace research, manufacture and procurement; and for aircrew, both civil and military - particularly during training. It will also be of great interest to university students specialising in aerospace, mechanical and electronic engineering, and to professional engineers and scientists in the marine, automotive and related industries.

Contents: Preface; Introduction; The human component; The need for protection; Crewstation design; External vision; The display suite; Display technology and head-down displays; The head-up display; Helmet-mounted display systems; Auditory displays; Controls; Emergency escape; Clothing and headgear; Future Crewstations; Appendices; Index.

After an apprenticeship in electrical engineering, Don Jarrett studied the optical properties of thin metal films at the Lanchester Polytechnic and the thermo-mechanical properties of glass ceramics as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Warwick University. In the spring of 1974 he joined the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, where acceptance of an invitation to take a temporary interest in helmet-mounted systems caused him to spend the next thirty years investigating aircrew and their workplace. He has published many scientific papers in this field and holds a number of patents.