Abstract
In the revolutionary days of aviation, flights were only operated during good weather and good visibility. During the pioneering days of flight operations, the pilot was expected to keep visual contact with the ground below him throughout the flight and more so, used it as a point of reference for performing all the maneuvers. Early aircraft were designed in such a way that the pilot was positioned in front of the plane providing him with a higher level of visibility.
Introduction
Flight instruments are the devices in the cockpit of an aircraft that offers the pilot with necessary information about the flight state of that particular aircraft. The information ranges from airspeed, heading, altitude and also route guidance. For a flight to be safe, there must be the availability of flight instruments that helps the pilot to operate the aircraft in a right flight level and make maneuvers without the need to use a reference point on the aircraft. However, at early ages this was not the case, the pilot used visual contact with the ground or even use a reference point such as the horizon (Hughes, 1946). There has been an enormous improvement in the flight instruments being used today
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Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the governing agency in aviation. This agency has been operating for a long time. The FAA technicians have carried out a vital aeronautical research over the years by use of various aircraft (US Department & FAA, 2004). This has enhanced the advancement of modern aviation technologies that make flying safer and efficient. The first airway beacons, as well as the four-course ranges which (initially radio-based navaids), were first set up in the 1920s. The agency was also responsible for the proliferation of VOR/ILS operations after the Second World War (Canavan, 2002). This paper seeks to provide history overview of the history of aviation instruments cutting in parallel with the developments that have been achieved so far.
Early Cockpit Instruments and Their Impacts
Some of the tools that have advanced to counter pilot’s sensory vulnerabilities are flight instruments intended to present aircraft heading, altitude information, and speed.
The first flight instruments to be used by pioneers of aviation was the compass (Allstar, 1995/00). The early aviators took advantage of the magnetic compass to do away with their initial dependence on visual cues for finding a heading (Nahum, 2011).The new compasses being used today are two basic forms gyro-magnetic, and magnetic. Chinese magicians discovered these types of compasses in many years ago. They were able to find out the properties of magnetism unknowingly when they were playing a board game that looked like a game of chess. Initial pilots made use of borrowed sea and land to show them directions. Nonetheless, compasses filled with liquid were not very accurate. Sharp turning and deep maneuvers caused the compass to provide wrong heading information.
Developing of speed measuring device was a significant development. Being aware of the exact speed you’re flying with is vital for many reasons (Hughes, 1946). Most critical is the flow of air over the wings of the aircraft to produce lift and to continue staying airborne the pilot was expected to observe a minimum speed, or the aircraft would lose lift (stall). Early airspeed indicators were mechanical and differential. Mechanical instruments were very simple and provided only limited information. Other mechanical airspeed indicators developed to be ostentatious, and their advancement started on a beach in North Carolina (Nahum, 2011). Apparently, the airspeed indicator has significantly improved the pilot’s ability to fly at night and during poor visibility days making use of dead reckoning.
The use of visual to achieve height estimation above the ground by the early pilots. He applied the eye’s ability to figure out changes in the size of objects as he continued with the flight to approximate his altitude (Hughes, 1946). Additionally, the eye’s binocular nature gave him a particular level of depth perception. Regrettably, for these practices to be remotely useful, good weather conditions and sunlight were needed. Subsequently, flying in the darkness and depending on bonfires, and beacons to provide direction clues was a hard task. The early tools for altitude indicators were of two types, barograph, and altimeter which were adapted from the aneroid barometer used by Meteorologists.
Findings
Through the use of VFR settings, the pioneers in aviation successfully extracted sufficient inputs from his senses to efficiently fly the aircraft. Nevertheless, the continued encounters with bad weather and poor visibility robbed pilots their predictable sensory inputs and several accidents were reported. Interdependence on vestibular, “seat of the pants” estimation, and visual was a fundamental challenge that prompted flight instrument development. As a result, modern equipment was discovered that enhanced safety and efficient flights.
Conclusion
It goes without saying that the evolution of basic speed, heading, and altitude indicating equipment has an essential effect on pilot spatial disorientation (SD) and Loss Situational Awareness (LSA). Currently, these three instruments are very critical to carrying out safe flight operations in VFR conditions. In fact, it is the allowed minimum requirement developed by the FAA for private aircraft. This research has significant impacts on aviation safety as well as the technological advancement gained while applying of the SHEL model branches in other sectors man-machine relations. It is through the application of human factors in engineering that the problems being experienced in aviation today will come to an end.
References
U.S. Department of Transportation., & Federal Aviation Administration. (2014). Instrument procedures handbook 2014 .
Canavan, A. (2002). The Federal Aviation Administration . Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers.
Hughes, A. J. (1946). History of air navigation . London: G. Allen & Unwin Ltd.
Nahum, A., & Nahum, A. (2011). Flight . New York: DK Pub.
