wrote:
Roy Smith wrote:



I agree -- the biggest problem with today's crop of GPS is that the
UIs all stink. Having a full keyboard would help a lot (not full in
the sense of a normal PC keyboard, but all the digits and letters).
The problem is, there's no place to put such a thing in a typical GA
cockpit. They are starting to appear, however, in conjunction with
cockpits designed from the ground up to use modern systems
(http://www.lancairusa.com/20051103.html, for example).


The avionics engineers call it panel "real estate."

No high-end FMS systems use the QWERTY keyboard, rather they use a
non-typist alpha-numeric keypad.

We used to have those non-qwerty keyboards in our Approach Control
facilities. Don't know if it's true, but I heard rumors that they were
made that way to prevent overloading the computer with fast typing. They
never had to worry about that from me!
Some of the new PDA's have small folding keyboards that use bluetooth
technology to input the signal, those might be an option for tight
cockpits. No wires, and not much space required when not in use.

John