Pilots: What would you prefer - Vibrating seats or conventional warnings lights?

Both, plus aural warnings. I've experienced multiple failures in a simulator and it can become a rather confusing having several lights on which must be read and interpreted plus several aural warnings going off at the same time. I can see where a vibrating seat could help establish priorities about which failure to handle first.

On one training exercise I had about half the panel lit plus every horn going off. When they asked me what was happening I answered "I'm not sure but I think if I get one more light I win 10 free games".

In Vietnam the pilots were found to be turning the warning buzzers off as soon as they crossed the boarder.

There is such a thing as pilot attention overload.

Usually, the simplest thing is the BEST thing.

That's the reason for training pilots to scan the instruments; that's the reason that instruments are arrayed the scientifically viable way they are; instruments are known to be more scannable (sic) if they are appropriately gaged.

Many drivers knows this. The same is true for the automobile gages; tachometers are generally correct when the Gauge angle is roughly the same as the other parts of the instrument package at the most commonly driven speed. That's one of the basic premises for even having a tachometer; it makes knowing your in the wrong gear easy to see...

The same is true with any instrument package in any airplane. An ergonomics engineer's job is to determine what is better perceived by an alert pilot as well as what keeps the mind's interest and to mix these two factors.

Annoying the brain is not the issue. Keeping it alert is.

That said, I'm not a big fan of over complicating an aircraft seat. It does a job.

One of the basic jobs should be that of being removable in case a pilot gets trapped, I think. And I think this because I've actually managed to seriously bend a co-pilot's seat in my day reefing on a stick after total hydraulics failure. The control column also bent. This left me with no way out of the plane in water. That is no place to be.

I know about aircraft engineers. We tend to overdo things. Stick shakers are one example. They might have moved the handle like a cell phone, but noooo.

The whole stick has to be pounded on. If they do the same thing with a seat, it might very well TEND to be done to death... eventually if it catches on... and I mean literally the death of some poor sap who's seat is too rigidly fixed in a permanent way.

No fun ~ sinking. Been there, done that. Waters cold down bottom.

Considering some of the planes I fly. I'll take the warning lights. If a warning system were installed into the seats of some of the antiques I fly in no one would be able to tell the difference.

firefox, guess what :)

my seat vibrates each transition from slant flow to vertical flow; seats of ALL helicopters do. so do the instrument panels and your teeth.

i would still prefer a distinct light accompanied to with sound to report warning/cautions.

sounds like the crap they are installing in cars these days..

** as they said on the show Top Gear.....some women are intentionally driving on the shoulder to activate the "warning seat vibrations"......>.<

No brainier. Conventicle warning lights.

vibrating seats