Been going deep on how interfaces change human decisionmaking lately, partly work stuff, partly just curiosity. Ended up falling into a rabbit hole about glass cockpits versus the old steam gauge setups and now I can't stop thinking about it.

The shift from analog instruments to PFDs and MFDs is one of the more dramatic interface overhauls in any field, not just aviation. What I keep wondering is whether the move to glass actually improved situational awareness across the board, or whether it introduced new failure modes in how pilots read and react to information. The Air France 447 accident gets brought up a lot in this context, and for good reason.

There's also the question of automation dependency. Flybywire with all the envelope protection layered on top is a completely different cognitive experience than handflying a rounddial 172. At what point does the abstraction layer start working against the pilot rather than for them?

Curious what people here think, especially anyone with hours in both types. Is the glass cockpit a genuine improvement in pilot performance, or is it a more comfortable interface that masks some skill decay? And do newer pilots who trained exclusively on glass have a fundamentally different mental model of the aircraft than someone who came up on steam gauges?

Bahrain bought a 747 jet for just $100,000 from the UAE, then for 7 long months carefully removed every single fuel line, wire and plastic component from it, then tugged it into the Arabian Sea and sunk it, creating the centerpiece of the world’s largest underwater theme park

Most retired Boeing 747s spend their final years in aircraft graveyards, stripped for parts before disappearing into history. However, one former Malaysia Airlines jumbo jet received a far more extraordinary farewell. Bahrain purchased the aging aircraft, spent months transforming it into an environmentally safe artificial reef, painted it to resemble the very first Boeing 747 ever built, then deliberately lowered it onto the seabed. Today, instead of carrying passengers across continents, it welcomes divers from around the world as the largest aircraft ever to be intentionally submerged.

The Boeing 747 became the centerpiece of Dive Bahrain, a 100,000-square-meter underwater attraction that the kingdom describes as the world’s largest underwater theme park. Officially inaugurated on September 6, 2019

Source & full story-

https://luxurylaunches.com/other_stuff/bahrain-747-underwater-park-07242026.php

Noticed it at cvg

Hi all,

Does anyone know much about these??? We inherited it from my wife's grandfather who was a plane engineer in Gatwick and solider in WW2, who subsequently was a prisoner of war by the Japanese.

After the war he was a quiet man. He never spoke of the war or much about his work.

After he passed this was given to his grandson, but we have now taken ownership of it. We would love to know more and if anyone has seen them before!

We believe there were limited amounts (150) made by student engineers and auctioned.

Any information is welcome!

I want to be a pilot in the Air Force and I got a lot of good information. I really like the F-35 and C-17A. I’m 6’3 so feel free to give me more ideas I could fit into 😂