T-45 Cockpit - HUD and MFD

I took this photo of the cockpit of a US Navy T-45 jet trainer at the Barnes Air Show in Western Massachusetts in August 2005 (the Thunderbirds were there, great show). I ended up using this in my Go Play in Space tutorial book for Orbiter, to illustrate what a real HUD (head-up display) and real MFD's (multi-function display) look like in a real aircraft. Orbiter spacecraft have a simulated HUD and two MFD screens that are used to display various navigation and control information, as is done in many combat, trainer, and other military aircraft.



Compare this to the similar HUD and two MFD's configuration of Orbiter's Delta Glider (shown in its virtual cockpit view).



This is my first post using pictures from Flickr, an on-line picture storage and display system offered by Yahoo. It's free and it seems pretty cool - by posting the picture there and using the HTML code they supply to reference it here, I can insert the picture where I want it in the blog entry, and if you click on it, it takes you to the Flickr page where you can see the picture in other sizes, and also easily find other related pix I may post there.