It would be nice if it worked out that the letters always stood for
the same thing, but it doesn't. Like "G". What does "G" stand for?
Gyro? Gear? Gust?


We'd need as many letters as words. Spelling would be easy, but I'd neverl
earn the alphabet!


G - Gear.
U - Umm, something about gear.
M - Main landing gear.
P - Please tell me the gear is down.
S - Static landing gear is always down.


Gas, Undercarriage, Mixture, Pitch, Seatbelts.

Pitch refers to propeller pitch.
G does refer to Gas.

Another acronym I have - in the piper archer and dakota I fly, the row of
identical switches (awful design, but all too common) are labeled, but in the
dark, in a rush, in a blur, one can't read the labels. So I use FLAP

In order, left to right (after the master) is
Fuel pump
Landing light
Anticollision (strobe) lights
Pitot heat.

So now it's not gas, it's fuel. But it works.

I once played with a device which was cobbled together from old parts of this
and that (it set up and ran Conway's game of Life on the TV screen), and it had
about four switches, but they were all different. It was a cinch to operate
because each function was assigned to a different KIND of switch. I could tell
by feel what everything did. Smart aircraft designers should do the same. (in
fact, all aircraft designers should take a lesson from this - it's not limited
to throttle, mixture, pitch, flap, and wheel)

Jose

--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)