Boeing 747-8 Information

[stekeller]

Hello All:

I found a good link to information on the new 747-8 I had not seen before.

http://bts.boeing.com/commercial/startup/747-8.html

Perhaps most intriguing is an updated view of what the new cockpit will look like. All files are downloadable PDF files.

- Stefan Keller
KORD

[Qavion]

[Stefan=quote]Perhaps most intriguing is an updated view of what the new cockpit will look like. [/quote]

A sort of 777/744 hybrid. 777 EICAS Select Panel and MCDU's. ND's with vertical profile displays. Missing Stab Trim Indicators? Interesting new comms panels.

The picture shows a Freighter version, btw.

[Hardy Heinlin]

Single stab trim indicator on upper EICAS near the flap indicator.

And the good old mechanical MCP is back :-)

|-|

[stekeller]

H: I find it hard to believe they would bring the mechanical MCP back. Why have moving parts when LCDs are low power, last forever, and are easy to backlight?

Another odd thing is the replacement of the cursor control devices that are on the 777, and were originally supposed to go on the 747-8. In their place are strange white knobs. I wonder if the lower EICAS will now be a touch screen to avoid the need for a cursor.

Another thing I noticed is a smaller gear handle, and the autobrakes selector is now below the gear handle. It is odd that the EFBs look like such an afterthought. I thought their integration would have been more elegant. As with the mechanical MCPs, this could be a mockup made of parts from other aircraft for ergonomic studies, etc. rather than the final design.

Either way, the 747-8 will have the same type rating as the 744 with conversions made as a "differences" course for pilots. Therefore, the systems and overhead will be largely the same.

Qavion: I give up - how can you tell it's a freighter?

- Stefan

[Hardy Heinlin]

Qavion: I give up - how can you tell it's a freighter?

:-)

Look at the type of call panel aft of the rudder trim knob.

|-|

[Phil Bunch]

The traditional Boeing yoke looks out of place aesthetically to me, with its retro 1950s style (grins). It makes me wonder if a sailing ship's wheel with radial handles and spokes should have been used all this time (more grins).

Yet it would be counter to Boeing's long-established designs to use anything except a yoke with its powered simulation of various manual controls effects dating back to the days of cables and pulleys.  Yet if they were to convert now, pilots that are familiar with the key Boeing airliners would experience a discontinuity as they moved from a Boeing airliner with a traditional yoke to a hypothetical airliner with something like a joystick.  Airbus must have worried about this as they designed their first modern airliner, too.

I wonder if they will convert to a joystick or some other design to replace the yoke in the foreseeable future?  A fixed joystick with strain sensors as used in some US fighter planes would be an interesting alternative.  If fighter planes can use it, why not airliners?

[Shiv Mathur]

Hi Phil,

Speaking for myself (having had the chance to get into a proper sim a few times), the feel of the traditional yoke is quite unique.  You get the sense you are flying a 'proper' airplane, not a toy.

Maybe some real pilots can give us their opinions.

Shiv

[Hardy Heinlin]

The question is, what gives a better feedback: force or deflection? Pounds or inches?

Perhaps a mix of both?

Large stick deflection is useless if it is not accompanied by an increasing force. And then, if you don't look at the stick (what you won't do anyway), which of the two factors gives you more detailed feedback: the spatial distance from neutral, or the force difference?

In other words, if you're sitting in the darkness pulling on a stick, how do you know how far you pulled if you feel no force?

Cheers,

|-|ardy

[John Davis PC]

hadnt thought of it before, but maybe the look and feel of the yoke and its movements is far more intuitive if the aircraft gets into trouble like the Air france .... you would see the yokes moving and push and pull like mad, Im guessing theres not many cues from a joystick.

I get many flight simmers who fly my sim who fly only with Joystics and they find it much harder even though mine are still "Plastic Yokes" not real ones like Matts.

[Will]

Look at how a typical civilian pilot's career gets going:

Flying lessons in a C152 (tiny plastic yoke that moves in and out): 300 hours
Glider time (no yoke, but a stick): 500 hours
Cargo in a DHC-6 (bizarre Y-shaped control column, throttles on the ceiling!!!): 1000 hours
Commuter airline job  in a EMB-145 (upside-down ram's horn yoke): 2000 hours

After all that varied experience, any pilot would quickly be able to adapt to a new control mechanism, sidestick or yoke.  Try it yourself!  Re-map the controls of your sim so that the pitch axis is reversed, and then go fly.  Sure, it's wild at first, but after only 1-2 minutes, it's intuitive and you've demonstrated your adaptability.  Learning a new control mechanism is very, very easy.

Hardy, sometimes in our sims we would turn the hydraulics off for various reasons.  When we did that, the force disappeared from the yoke and we had no resistance at all on any axis. This was disconcerting at first, and everyone would overcorrect wildly, but after 1-2 minutes you picked up how to do it and you could fly just fine.  Not that I'm recommending this... but my point is that it's very easy to integrate visual information with fine motor control and executive function; it's something humans do really with very little trouble.

There could be many reasons for Boeing's old-style handles... perhaps it's just marketing, like a way to "brand" their jets.  (That I would understand.)  But I never had much sympathy for the argument that the Boeing wheel was somehow more intuitive, or easier to learn, or easier to fly, or safer.  Just different.

[Phil Bunch]

As a non-pilot, perhaps the most puzzling aspects of the Boeing 747 yoke is its use of quite high force loadings in certain situations.

It seems to me that forcing a pilot to use very high force levels on the yoke for a sustained period of time is just plain dangerous, and more so for pilots with low body weight/low upper body strength.  

I'm guessing that the original pulley and cable airplane controls, as used in World War II, frequently required such forces, but this is 2009 and I would think scaling back the maximum force required to manipulate a yoke to say 10-20 kg would be safer without sacrificing the stability of the controls and the flight.

Obviously, it would be very expensive to redesign and refit all the 747s out there to my hypothetical reduced maximum force design, even if it somehow has some vague merit design approach.

I found Will's discussion to be interesting.  I wouldn't have guessed that it's easy for one to adapt to radical yoke force profile changes but it seems to make sense retrospectively.  Probably I shouldn't comment since I have so little experience unless I can count driving automobiles that range from manual transmission, low-powered VW Beetles to my current partly drive-by-wire computerized car.

Yet simple things such as braking with one's left foot but only with automatic transmission cars vs always braking with one's right foot can become critical in case of a sudden emergency.  Thus, I was always taught to only brake with one's right foot and not to place one's left foot hovering over the brake pedal, as one can optionally do with an automatic transmission car.

I know - the perfect solution would be to include both an Airbus-style joystick AND a traditional Boeing yoke in every airliner!!   (just kidding!)

[Will]

Hey Phil, you talked about right-vs.-left footedness and driving--I assure you the same thoughts crossed my mind when I sat in the right seat of a C172 for my very first flight as a CFI candidate.  I thought about getting in an unusual attitude (which frequently happens in CFI training) and using muscle memory from my left (yoke) hand to activate the throttle... or vice versa in some crazy and uncoordinated combination.

But as every CFI will tell you, flying (and landing, and recovering from stalls and spins) from the right seat is actually pretty much the same as from the left.  When transitioning from the left seat of the C206 into the right seat of the DHC-6, the right-vs.-left thing was a complete non-issue.  I don't think any of us even talked about it.

Side note: As far as the DHC-6 goes, having the throttles on the ceiling was a bit weird. What was wildly strange about the throttles on the ceiling was telling flying stories later... After a year in the Twin Otter, my flying stories would be like, "there I was, the turbulence was severe...." and one hand would go up in the air, pantomiming pulling back on the power levers. Except nobody had any idea why my left hand was a raised fist over my head.  I only realized later how bizarre it was.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

I know - the perfect solution would be to include both an Airbus-style joystick AND a traditional Boeing yoke in every airliner!!   (just kidding!)

I was fortunate to once fly the research simulator of the Dutch National Aerospace Laboratory, called GRACE. This unique thing had both sidesticks and central yokes installed at the same time. It did not make much difference which system I used, though the yokes obviously weren't hydraulically powered/force-fed.

Previous discussion on this topic indicated that pilots who have flown both the Boeing and the Airbus airliners don't really have a preference for yoke or sidestick. Not even the left hand versus right hand issue meant much to them. As soon as you got the feel for it and did the manoeuvres a few times, it was okay.


Jeroen

[Hardy Heinlin]

I get many flight simmers who fly my sim who fly only with Joystics and they find it much harder even though mine are still "Plastic Yokes" not real ones like Matts.

Do they find your yoke harder or do they find joysticks harder?

[John Davis PC]

They find the Yokes harder .... but mostly they find it difficult becausse PS1 has a flight model and Microsoft doesnt   ... the biggest thing they notice is the inertia in the flight model, dont think they get much bounce or ballooning when landing in FS ... even caught Hoppie out on one of the videos I was watching yesterday  
Another great one to watch their faces on is when the nosewheel collapses ... dont think PMDG have modelled that one

[John Davis PC]

P.S. Hoppies comment in the landing  ..... "oh , thats not good .... ok, i want you down, i want you down, i want you down ... ah  there we go!  LOL

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Now you know why last time we didn't even switch the sim on while I was there   :?

[John Davis PC]

He He ... that's the very reason we should have

[JM1053139]

... the biggest thing they notice is the inertia in the flight model, dont think they get much bounce or ballooning when landing in FS

It seems like aircraft in FS either have too much bounce (I remember one freeware Dash 8 from a while back that would bounce back up into the air even if the landing was gentle) or none at all. I suppose most developers choose none at all because it's more realistic than flying off the runway like a rocket during landing.

At any rate, I have always preferred yokes.

[John Davis PC]

As I understand it, the developers cannot do much about it as they haver to work with microsofts flight models so basically the big jets end up flying like souped up cessnas !

Thats where PS1 completely catches my customers out