Even as it works toward delivery of the first flying A350 cockpit later this year, Thales (Hall Concorde) is exploring possibilities for the post-2020 generation of aircraft at its Le Haillan facility in Bordeaux. The one-display cockpit interactive solution (Odicis) featured in the company’s pavilion here is intended to help define what Thales terms cockpit 3.0, a successor to the first- and second-generation flight decks represented by the Concorde, with its separate instrument for each parameter, and the A320, which allocated a single display per function.
The A350 will stick with the A320-derived format used by the A380 to minimize the amount of retraining needed as pilots move from other Airbus models, though the displays themselves will be bigger, lighter and less power-hungry. As Sebastien Perrignon, A350 program manager, explained at Le Haillan before the airshow, the A350 will have six 15-inch diagonal screens in place of the A380’s eight eight- by six-inch screens for a 60-percent increase in display area. But the screens will be divided to present each pilot with the familiar primary flight and navigation displays side by side, using the same colors and symbology.
