Cockpit Display Systems Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Correct answer: Attitude, airspeed, altitude and heading

The primary flight display carries the information needed to fly the aircraft: attitude at the centre, with airspeed on a tape to the left, altitude and vertical speed to the right, and heading along the bottom. This is the classic basic T layout, carried onto glass from the mechanical panel so that the scan a pilot learned on dials transfers unchanged.

Engine parameters and alert messages belong to a separate engine and alerting display, the moving map to the navigation display, and cabin and cargo temperatures to the system synoptic pages.

Answer: B

The arrangement was standardised on mechanical panels and carried forward onto glass displays unchanged. Preserving it means a pilot's scan pattern transfers between aircraft types and between generations of equipment.

Answer: C

Correct answer: The route, oriented to track

In map mode the navigation display shows the flight plan ahead of the aircraft, with the aircraft symbol near the bottom and the display oriented to track or heading, so that what appears at the top of the screen is what lies ahead. Weather radar returns, terrain, traffic and navigation aids can be overlaid on the same picture.

This track-up orientation is what makes the mode suitable for flying: the display corresponds directly with the view out of the window. Attitude and airspeed are on the primary flight display, and engine and pressurisation data elsewhere.

Answer: D

Correct answer: North-up and centred on a waypoint

Plan mode presents the route north-up and centred on a selected waypoint rather than on the aircraft, and it does not move with the aircraft. That makes it the mode for reviewing or amending a flight plan - the crew can step through the waypoints and see the whole route geometry in a fixed frame.

Map mode is the opposite in both respects: oriented to track and centred on the aircraft, for flying rather than planning. Plan mode is available throughout the flight, and it is not restricted to weather radar or to any phase.

Answer: A

Presenting the engine picture beside the alerts lets a crew see a fault and its consequences together. The equivalent on other manufacturers' aircraft is the electronic centralised aircraft monitor, which follows the same idea.

Answer: B

Correct answer: No caution or warning is displayed

Under the dark cockpit principle, a correctly configured aircraft with all systems normal shows no illuminated caution or warning indications at all - the overhead panel is dark. Any light that is on therefore means something, and the crew can scan the panel for anomalies without reading each legend.

The principle concerns what the annunciators show, not the ambient lighting, and it does not mean displays are switched off or that only red is used. Its value lies in making the abnormal immediately conspicuous against a uniform dark background.

Answer: C

The distinction is a statement about how much time the crew has before the situation becomes unrecoverable. Cautions demand timely action and advisories merely inform, which is why the colours are not used interchangeably.

Answer: D

Correct answer: A normal or engaged condition

Green indicates a normal or engaged condition - a system operating correctly, a mode active as selected, a configuration as intended. It is deliberately the least attention-getting of the coded colours, because it confirms rather than demands.

The alerting colours are red for a warning requiring immediate action and amber for a caution requiring timely action, and their use is reserved strictly for those meanings so that either colour appearing anywhere on the flight deck carries the same urgency. Cyan and white are used for information and for inactive or reference data.

Answer: A

Correct answer: The active flight plan leg

Magenta marks the active flight plan leg on a navigation display - the segment the aircraft is currently flying towards, together with the active waypoint. The convention extends across the flight deck: magenta also marks the selected target values and the flight director cues the crew is following.

The idea is that magenta means "this is what the aircraft is doing or aiming at now", distinguishing the active leg from the white or green of the rest of the route. It has no alerting meaning; red and amber alone carry that.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Converts data into display images

The symbol generator takes data from the aircraft's sensors and systems - attitude and heading references, air data computers, the flight management system, radios and radar - and converts it into the video images the display units present. It holds the symbology, the formats and the display logic.

The display unit itself is essentially a screen with its drive electronics. This division matters for failure analysis: one symbol generator commonly drives several screens, so its loss removes more than one display, which is why aircraft carry two or three.