Panel Ergonomy

[Ron Natalie]

Airbus wrote:

> I recently flew an older Cessna, in which the NAV frequency select was
> directly ON the VOR indicator, as was the DME readout. This just seemed
> like good ergonomics to me - no way to make a mistake. Who makes these?
> Why do we see them so rarely?
>

NARCO. One of the few good things they ever did.

It ought to be possible now to do that quite practically with the
miniturization of components.

[Airbus]

I am used to flying planes with KX-155/155a and/or G430/530. In either
case, your OBS and VOR indicator are separate from the frequency select
unit. Add to this the fact that many panels are set up with the DME
slaved only to the #2NAV, and you have ample room for error. It's just
easy, in those situations where you're dialing through frequencies
quickly, to find yourself following the wrong VOR, or not understanding
why your DME is not doing what you expect.

I recently flew an older Cessna, in which the NAV frequency select was
directly ON the VOR indicator, as was the DME readout. This just seemed
like good ergonomics to me - no way to make a mistake. Who makes these?
Why do we see them so rarely?

[Kobra]

> easy, in those situations where you're dialing through frequencies
> quickly, to find yourself following the wrong VOR, or not understanding
> why your DME is not doing what you expect.

In my case, my Nav 1 is below my Nav 2 in the panel and the VOR heads are
the reverse of that (VOR 1 above VOR 2. I made the usual mistakes with this
situation many times until I got used to it.

The thing is, that I navigate with GPS during VFR operations and it's not
really an issue. However, I use the Nav's and VOR's during IFR operations
and that is when a mistake like that could be critical. My partner and I
have discussed making the swap, but we've not done it yet. I think the next
time it's in for anything else I'm going to authorize the switch.

Kobra

[[email protected]]

On Mon, 10 Sep 2007 07:59:40 -0400, Ron Natalie >
wrote:

>Airbus wrote:
>
>> I recently flew an older Cessna, in which the NAV frequency select was
>> directly ON the VOR indicator, as was the DME readout. This just seemed
>> like good ergonomics to me - no way to make a mistake. Who makes these?
>> Why do we see them so rarely?
>>
>
>NARCO. One of the few good things they ever did.
>

Yes & No! An excellent idea and saves panel space. We have one of
these but also have a selector switch so the DME readout (on the VOR 1
Indicator) can be selected to either NAV 1 or NAV 2.
Great when the VOR you're following does not have an associated DME or
you are using a VOR too far away to read DME but a nearby LOC/DME can
be used. Yes it's easy to make a mistake :-(

>It ought to be possible now to do that quite practically with the
>miniturization of components.

[[email protected]]

On Tue, 11 Sep 2007 07:46:16 -0500, Grumman 46U wrote:

>On Mon, 10 Sep 2007 06:18:02 -0700, Airbus > wrote:
>
><snip>
>>
>>I recently flew an older Cessna, in which the NAV frequency select was
>>directly ON the VOR indicator, as was the DME readout. This just seemed
>>like good ergonomics to me - no way to make a mistake. Who makes these?
>>Why do we see them so rarely?
>
>
>When I purchased my Cheetah, it had a Narco 122 installed. This is a
>self-contained VOR-LOC-GS instrument with marker beacon annunciators
>on it. To my mind, it is one of the best instruments I have--easy to
>use, clear to read, and dead-on accurate.
>
>Narco makes a new model of that instrument, which is digitally rather
>than mechanically tuned. It, however, does not have the marker beacons
>present on the instrument, which I think is a shortcoming.
>
>
>Michael

The Narco IDME 891 has VOR-LOC-GS and does have repeat indicators from
the Marker Receiver in the Audio Panel (CPM 136M).