Posted for ClarkM <ClarkM@nimitz.navy.mil>:


Annunciator Ideas

Just in case anyone was wondering what Boeing does in the latest model
F/A-18F, here goes.

It a combination of a voice, tone, and light system.  First the voice is
female with a southern accent.  They changed to his because it gets the
attention of the majority of the populous better.  Remember they are
designing for the 95th percentile.
Betty, as we all call her will announce very bad things in different voices.
i.e."  Engine Fire Left, Engine Fire Left"
At the same time this happens, a red Annunciator panel light will illuminate
right in front of my eyes.

As for the lights, standard convention, red worst yellow bad, green good.
There is also a master caution light.  It is tripped anytime you have a
malfunction the get deemed greater than an advisory.  This light will remain
on till the malfunction clears or I punch it out.  There is also a
deeble-deeble tone associated with this light.  For the majority of all malfunctions, I get a word describing what has
happened on one of my displays.

I also have a back up annonciator panel that will show items that are deemed
critical to know about should the display fail but do not have there own red
light.

So I have basically triple redundancy everywhere.

As for things like the gear, green good, flashing/steady red bad.  Having flown the majority of my flight time in A-4s,F-14s, and F/A-18s, I
think the system in the Super Hornet is as good as it gets.  I realize this
is out of the price league for a home built, but I have built in many of the
features into the circuitry I am building for my plane.  I have had the lucky/unlucky experience to be several hours from home, with
bad guys shooting at me and losing systems like the HYDs.  You want to know
when there is a problem and not be able to miss it when I am looking outside
at bullets and missiles coming up hill.  Same goes for having your head in
an approach plate, if the right main does not come down.  I want a whoop to
let me know and I also want to know immediately if the hyds are operating to
minimize my trouble shooting.  As life goes plan for the worse, and expect to have to manually blow the
gear down at 3nm and fly a ILS to well below mins and land on a boat.  I do.
SA is life along with gas and speed and I would put the annunciator panel
near the top of my list.

Mike "Swampy" Clark 320/80%