"Byrd, Ray" wrote:

I remember an old second-hand story...General Dynamics used voice

warnings

in the B-52 Hustler.  Voice was very pleasant feminine.  "Your

afterburner

temp is redline"...drove pilots nuts. They had to get rid of it.

Ray Byrd

Being able to select info upon button press would eliminate excess chatter
from the CAWS, but... what if you pressed the button, and nothing happened?
You wouldn't know the box had failed until you requested a reading. Then
what? If you still have analog standbys, I think you'd end up scanning them
anyway in your instrument scan pattern. Maybe would work OK with a 3 or 4
line LCD too.

Not quite right Mike. Each button press would go through its list with
good or bad data. If you got nothing your EFIS failed. Just as an LCD
based EFIS can fail. PL

In a similar vein to the story above, the C-17 has CAWS (central aural
warning) with a mix of female and male voices (depending on warning). The
box itself was in one of the avionics closets in the crew rest area. More
experienced mechs would scare the snot out of the newbies on occasion by
doing a self test on the 'Missile Launch' warning and then rush up front and
give the new guy hell for dropping a missile on the ground. Kinda like
sending someone for a bucket of propwash or a few yards of flightline, or to
base command for the aircraft keys. :)

BTW - first off, that CAWS msg related to the missile avoidance/jamming
equipment, and 2nd off, the C17 only carries missiles when they're properly
palletized in boxes :)

Mike Harrington

Kill that last comment of mine above.
Sorry Mike Brain fade on my part. Yes you are right. It needs to beep
in your head set once a minute or so. Or have an LED on the instrument
panel that lit up or blinked if it were working. 

Paul Lamar
 
The AirCraft Rotary Engine NewsLetter.              Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site.
http://home.earthlink.net/~rotaryeng/            http://www.linux.org