I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Stephen P. Anderson for The Informed Life. (Episode coming soon!) Among many other things, we discussed a concept from his new book with Karl Fast, Figure it Out: a cockpit as a key component of a pilot’s cognitive apparatus. As Stephen and Karl put it in the book, “An airplane cockpit is an environment loaded with external representations that make flying easier and safer.”
I won’t spoil the fun of our conversation here. (If you’re curious, I recommend you read the book, which is great.) I only mention it now because yesterday I saw a video that explains in detail the user interface of an F-15 jet fighter:
Among many insights in the video: getting a sense for the highly tactile nature of the physical controls of the aircraft, such as the various buttons and knobs on the control stick — including the “castle” switch and the “pickle” switch. (Yes, pickle. The fighter pilot who takes us through the cockpit explains the name’s origin.) The cockpit seems like an environment designed to reduce as much as possible the distance between the pilot’s reflexes and the jet’s actuators.
I learned a lot from this video, and was left with high expectations — it’s labeled as the first of a series called Human Interface. Subscribed.
Human Interface: What (almost) every button in an F-15C fighter’s cockpit does