There's a slightly awkward sentence that starts with "Avionics in the 1970s...[citation needed]." Suggest we replace or add with
Roughly 80 percent of the costs of the F15E is in avionics. Many modern avionics have their origins in World War II wartime developments. For example, autopilot systems that are prolific today were started to help bomber planes fly steady enough to hit precision targets from high altitudes.[1] Modern avionics is a substantial portion of military aircraft spending. Aircraft like the F-15E and the now retired F-14 have roughly 80 percent of their budget spent on avionics. Most modern helicopters now have budget splits of 60/40 in favour of avionics.[citation needed]
The Airbus A380 glass cockpit featuring "pull out keyboards and 2 wide computer screens on the sides for pilots".
The first hints of glass cockpits emerged in the 1970s when flight-worthy cathode ray tubes (CRT) screens began to replace electromechanical displays, gauges and instruments. A “glass” cockpit refers to the use of computer monitors instead of gauges and other analog displays. Aircraft were getting progressively more displays, dials and information dashboards that eventually competed for space and pilot attention. In the 1970s the average aircraft had more than 100 cockpit instruments and controls.[3]
Glass cockpits started to come into being with the Gulfstream G-IV private jet in 1985. One of the key challenges in glass cockpits is to balance how much control is automated and how much the pilot should do manually. Generally they try to automate flight operations while keeping the pilot constantly informed.[3]
I would also like to improve the Aircraft flight control section with some general improvements expansion as below. Note the mention of Honeywell in a bit of historical trivia.
Aircraft have means of automatically controlling flight. Today automated flight control is common to reduce pilot error and workload at key times like landing or takeoff. Autopilot was first invented by Lawrence Sperry during World War II to fly bomber planes steady enough to hit precision targets from 25,000 feet. When it was first adopted by the US military, a Honeywell engineer sat in the back seat with bolt cutters to disconnect the autopilot in case of emergency. Today it’s equipped on most commercial planes to reduce pilot error and workload at key times such as landing or takeoff.[4]
The advent of fly by wire and electro-actuated flight surfaces (rather than the traditional hydraulic) has increased safety. As with displays and instruments, critical devices that were electro-mechanical had a finite life. With safety critical systems, the software is very strictly tested.
Honeywell was recently given the National Medal of Technology by Obama[1] for inventions like the Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS) and the Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning (EGPWS). The GPWS was invented in 1972. These are a big deal in the aerospace industry and of historical value, but they are also basically Honeywell products. The current article doesn't have much history, so would I be producing some form of undue weight if I contribute to these historical landmarks Honeywell was involved in?
Modern weather systems also include windshear and turbulence detection, terrain and traffic warning systems.[5] In-plane weather avionics are especially popular in Africa, India and other countries where air-travel is a growing market, but ground support isn’t as well developed.[6]
Commercial aircraft cockpit data recorders, commonly known as a “black box”, store flight information and audio from the cockpit. They’re often recovered from a plane crash to determine the cause of the incident.
