WASHINGTON – The F-35 joint strike fighter is the most crammed-with-digital-tech fighter jet in history, the product of a multi-decade, trillion-dollar design process that has been famously messy. Boing Boing reports. Continue reading original article
The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:
10 Feb. 2021 -- But the jet is out there, and pilots are flying it. One big design shift with the F-35 is that it removes many of the small physical avionics switches that crowded older jet cockpits, and replaces them with a big touchscreen.
In theory the all-glass display is great. Its touchscreen, you can set it up to show pretty much anything you want in any layout you want. Take, for example, a fuel display. You can have it in a large window that shows you everything you could possibly want to know about the aircraft's fuel system.
The drawback is in the complete lack of tactile response. It can be challenging to press the correct button on the display whenever the jet is in motion as it is quite a bumpy ride at times. One of the biggest drawbacks is that you can't brace your hand against anything while typing.
John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics
