At some point in time or the other, we all have watched WWII movies with planes flying high and pilots frantically tapping the fuel gage or some other instrument to make sure the indicator needle is not stuck and the display is working as intended.

Cut to 2015 and scene has changed. Today, not only do aeroplanes have modern high speed electrical and digital instruments to display a hundred different engine matrices and keep track of everything from cabin pressure to fuel pressure; they have built-in failure detection circuits that in turn keep track of the instruments themselves. No more tapping the dials to make sure they are display the correct information.

A modern aircraft has numerous high-speed electrical instruments for maintaining the aircraft on cours ... Read more »