The primary flight display is the screen to the far left. They’re a form of redundancy, which is the name of the game in aviation. Not far from those screens are three classic-looking gauges that duplicate that information in analog form. We each have a monitor in front of us-the primary flight display-that indicates in colors such as green, purple, and blue crucial information like the aircraft’s airspeed and altitude. Upon it is simply written “FLAP.” The flap control. (Get it-a lever with a little wheel on it controls the wheels?) Another lever with a handle shaped like a wing controls the craft’s flaps and slats, which allow the plane to generate more lift and thus fly more slowly. MosesĪ single small lever, with fading green paint and a miniature wheel on the end, raises and lowers the enormous aircraft’s landing gear. A pair of pedals at each of our feet control the rudder.
Turn the wheel to the left, and the plane banks left. Pull the wheel and the column back towards you, and the plane’s nose pitches up. Both seats have a control column in front of them, with a wheel, on top. Sitting in the cockpit, some of the flight controls are easy to grok, even for a person who’s never ferried hundreds of passengers through the skies. (Vanhoenacker doesn’t fly the 747 now other pilots steered the plane in from London that day.)
To be in a 747 meant the chance to see the nerve center of an iconic aircraft up close-a plane that’s the basis for Air Force One, that people love flying in and staring at, and that helped make air travel more affordable-as airlines fly them less and less.
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I’m there to talk to Vanhoenacker about his latest book, How to Land a Plane, but also-let’s be honest-to just spend some time in the cockpit with a seasoned aviator who showed me some of its cavernous interior during an interview in late May. Earlier that morning, the vessel had flown in from London’s Heathrow, typically a seven-hour-plus flight. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, and the engines are off, so of course, we don’t change speed. Our airliner’s parked at a gate at John F.
“Push them forward, you go faster pull them back, you go slower.” A moment later he moves them back where they were. “It’s as basic as it can be,” Vanhoenacker says casually, then pushes those four thrust levers forward with one hand. Mark Vanhoenacker, a senior first officer with British Airways, author of air-travel books, and a columnist for the Financial Times, is in the seat to my right. I’m a journalist, not a pilot, but I’m sitting in the captain’s seat on the left side of the flight deck. Four Rolls Royce engines power the giant 747 aircraft, hanging off wings that span about 211 feet-and in the center of the cockpit are four ivory-colored thrust levers, one for each engine. The cockpit of a British Airways Boeing 747-400 is a beautifully complex place where a handful of analog gauges live side-by-side with digital displays.Īmong the vast array of system switches and controls in the worn flight deck, some parts are easier to understand than others.
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