If only the Wright Brothers had the same flight instruments that are available to today’s pilots, development of powered flight would perhaps have been a whole lot faster.

Back then the Wright Brothers had to make do with a tachometer, a wind meter and a stop watch. Pretty amazing when you consider that today pilots have information on the aircraft’s altitude, the condition of the aircraft, components, engine, weather, current position, navigation, cabin environment, communication and a couple of dozen other things.

In fact pilots of today are almost spoilt by the sheer choices they have. Technology has advanced so fast in the last decade that the humble cockpit with its numerous analog glass dials has given way to spacecraft-like touch screen digital flight mo ... Read more »