TUNisia From United States, joined Aug 2004, 1752 posts, RR: 8 Posted (4 years 5 months 5 days 5 hours ago) and read 2600 times:
I remember a post a while back in the civil aviation forum that said the Boeing 757 was the first plane to have a "glass cockpit." How is this possible being that the 757 was developed in the 70s and introduced in the 80s? Did the first 757s just have a 727 cockpit and were later updated?
If so, what was the first plane to have a glass cockpit?
"Someday the sun is going to shine down on me in some faraway place." - Mahalia Jackson
Aogdesk From United States, joined Jun 2004, 837 posts, RR: 4 Reply 1, posted (4 years 5 months 5 days 5 hours ago) and read 2586 times:
Definitely not....I wasn't in the biz when the 757 was introduced, but the current derivative of the glass cockpit is very close to what was designed in the original type certificate. As I understand it, its late 70s technology that was introduced in early 80s....82 perhaps??
MrChips From Canada, joined Mar 2005, 694 posts, RR: 0 Reply 2, posted (4 years 5 months 5 days 4 hours ago) and read 2537 times:
If I recall correctly, the first 767s had a traditional non-glass cockpit, but this was quickly discontinued. Since the 767 interestingly flew before the 757, I'm assuming that the 757 never flew with round gauges.
Interestingly, the first airliner that was supposed to have a glass cockpit was to be the 2707 SST...but sadly that never materialised.
David L From United Kingdom, joined May 1999, 8239 posts, RR: 40 Reply 5, posted (4 years 5 months 4 days 20 hours ago) and read 2431 times:
According to Wikipedia (don't know how reliable they are), the A-320 was the first with a "fully featured glass cockpit rather than the hybrid versions found in A310, Boeing 757 and Boeing 767". I've no idea which hybrid came first but I'm sure there are many here who know or can work it out.
Philsquares From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 6, posted (4 years 5 months 4 days 19 hours ago) and read 2410 times:
The first 767-200 was in service with UA 09/08/82 while the first in service date for the 757 was 01/01/83 with EA. As far as the comments about a "steam gauge" cockpit v. glass that's a new one on me.
I do know some of the 76s ordered for Australia were 3 man cockpits due to a labor issue there. However, those were just a handful. The 767 cockpit delivered to UA is basically the same as it is today, same holds true for the 75. There has been upgrades to the displays and FMC, but that's about it.
From the pictures it is pretty clear that the 757/767 has a glass cockpit with the EFIS/EICAS displays. They are just older and do not integrate as much information as the newer systems first seen on the A320 and 747-400.
Stop drop and roll will not save you in hell. --- seen on a church marque in rural Virginia
DeltaGuy From United States, joined Sep 2001, 4172 posts, RR: 29 Reply 12, posted (4 years 5 months 4 days 7 hours ago) and read 2205 times:
CRT's on the 75/76 for sure. Whenever you switch power sources (i.e. ground power to APU), all the CRT's go blank for a second, then reappear a bit smaller than they were, and refocus themselves....good ol 80's 767's
Love the LCD's on the 777 and 738...very clear and crisp.
DeltaGuy
"The cockpit, what is it?" "It's the little room in the front of the plane where the pilot sits, but that's not importan
TUNisia From United States, joined Aug 2004, 1752 posts, RR: 8 Reply 13, posted (4 years 5 months 4 days 5 hours ago) and read 2159 times:
Thanks for the responses. It was hard to imagine an LCD being available in the 80s.. that's why I always questioned the "glass cockpit" thing. Have all the 757s and 767 from the 80s been retrofitted with LCDs? Or are there still some flying with CRTs?
"Someday the sun is going to shine down on me in some faraway place." - Mahalia Jackson
AvionicMech From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2005, 315 posts, RR: 4 Reply 14, posted (4 years 5 months 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 2155 times:
Quoting TUNisia (Reply 13): Have all the 757s and 767 from the 80s been retrofitted with LCDs? Or are there still some flying with CRTs?
Haha, you must be joking. We have a fleet of about 25 or so 757/767's here at BY and they are all still very much in the dark ages of CRT's. I don't think there is any real need to change them so they don't get changed and that is pretty much the way this industry works unfortunately.
Infact I don't know of any 757/767's that have LCD screens, but the newest one I have worked on is about 3 years old now so maybe the newest one might have.
TUNisia From United States, joined Aug 2004, 1752 posts, RR: 8 Reply 15, posted (4 years 5 months 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 2150 times:
Quoting AvionicMech (Reply 14): Haha, you must be joking. We have a fleet of about 25 or so 757/767's here at BY and they are all still very much in the dark ages of CRT's. I don't think there is any real need to change them so they don't get changed and that is pretty much the way this industry works unfortunately.
Infact I don't know of any 757/767's that have LCD screens, but the newest one I have worked on is about 3 years old now so maybe the newest one might have.
Thanks for the info!
"Someday the sun is going to shine down on me in some faraway place." - Mahalia Jackson
MrChips From Canada, joined Mar 2005, 694 posts, RR: 0 Reply 17, posted (4 years 5 months 4 days 3 hours ago) and read 2140 times:
Quoting Philsquares (Reply 6): As far as the comments about a "steam gauge" cockpit v. glass that's a new one on me
Probably new to you Phil because my source wasn't all that great, and as such, made a butcher's out of the truth.
Here's the real deal:
Both the 757 and the 767 prototypes flew with glass cockpits.
Boeing originally designed the 757/67 flight deck with electronic displays and digital avionics, but initially, the airlines did not like the idea, so Boeing switched the design back to a standard electromechanical flight deck.
As time progressed, demand for EFIS increased substantially, and in 1978, very late in the design phase of the two aircraft (parts were soon to be cut), Boeing re-integrated the EFIS into the 757/67 flight deck.
If anyone is interested, my source for this info is a very fascinating article by NASA on technology in aircraft flight decks:
Citation X From Malaysia, joined Feb 2001, 47 posts, RR: 0 Reply 18, posted (4 years 5 months 4 days ago) and read 2115 times:
What about the computers used in early 80s 757/767/A310 etc and the A320s? Are the computers upgraded to faster CPUs on todays A320s and B767s? Just curious....
Woodreau From United States, joined Sep 2001, 770 posts, RR: 8 Reply 19, posted (4 years 5 months 3 days 18 hours ago) and read 2079 times:
Honeywell produces the FMS that's used in the Boeing 747/757/767/777 (737 uses a different FMS I guess), MD 11/80/90, Airbus 300/310/318/319/320/321/330/340, Fokker 70/100.
Looking at their first presentation (the Pegasus Presentation), it looks like difference between the computers running the FMS in today's A320 and yesterdays 757/767 is not very different...
Running on an AMD 29050 processor at 22 or 24Mhz for yesterdays 757/767 versus 32Mhz for todays aircraft. 32megs of RAM for yesterday and today.
For the future they look like they're offering an upgrade to a 64Mhz AMD 29050 and 64-128megs of RAM
But I think Pegasus came out in the late 1990's, so I think that's the latest iteration of computers out there.
[edit]I'll add as a point of reference, if the 757/767 came out in the mid-1980's, I think the leading PC computer processor during the mid-1980's was the Intel 8086 used in the IBM PC with 640K RAM with the 80286 coming out at 12/16Mhz. So the AMD 29050 powering the FMCs in the mid-1980's at 22Mhz is pretty fast for it's time. So comparing it to today's consumer PC processors running at 3+GHz is not really a valid comparison.
[Edited 2005-06-09 14:50:11]
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from surviving bad judgement.
David L From United Kingdom, joined May 1999, 8239 posts, RR: 40 Reply 21, posted (4 years 5 months 3 days 11 hours ago) and read 2002 times:
Quoting MrChips (Reply 17): Probably new to you Phil because my source wasn't all that great, and as such, made a butcher's out of the truth.
Not as bad as my double-whammy. Not only did my source turn out to be duff too, but I managed to transpose the "First" and "757" in the header - I thought the question was whether or not the 757 was the first with a glass cockpit. I'm extracting my foot now.
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