Cockpit

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Image:Robin.dr400slash500.g-rndd.arp.jpg

VC-10 (1960s) Commercial Airliner Cockpit. Modern airliners have more digital, and less analogue, cockpit instrumentation.

A cockpit was a pit used for cockfighting, where owners would pit fighting birds against each other for the purpose of gambling. In the 16th century, it was used to mean a place of entertainment or frenzied activity. William Shakespeare used the term in Henry V to specifically mean the area around the stage of a theater. In 1759, the English artist William Hogarth produced a satirical print called The Cockpit showing the enthusiasm of the gamblers during a cockfight. Belgium is sometimes known as the "Cockpit of Europe."

Cockpit also came to be used for any small enclosed area. On Royal Navy warships in the 17th and 18th century, the area where junior officers were stationed became known as the cockpit. This led to the word being used to refer to the area towards the stern of a small decked vessel that houses the rudder controls. Cockpit as a term for the pilot's compartment in an aircraft first appeared in 1914 and from about 1935 cockpit also came to be used informally to refer to the driver's seat of a car, especially a high performance one, and this is official terminology in Formula One.

The cockpit of an aircraft contains instrumentation, typically called an "instrument panel", and the controls which enable the pilot to fly the aircraft. In most commercial aircraft, a door separates the cockpit from the passenger compartment(s). After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, measures have been taken by all major airlines to fortify the cockpit against unauthorized access by would-be hijackers.

On an airliner, the cockpit is usually referred to as the "flight deck." This term derives from its use by the RAF for the separate, upper platform where the pilot and co-pilot sat in large flying boats.

The first airplane with an enclosed cabin appeared as early as 1913 on Igor Sikorsky's airplane The Grand. However, during the 1920s there were many passenger aircraft in which the crew were open to the air while the passengers sat in a cabin. Military biplanes and the first single-engined fighters and attack aircraft also had open cockpits into the Second World War.

Most cockpit windows are equipped with a sun shield at all sides. Most cockpits have one or more windows which can be opened when the aircraft is on the ground. Nearly all windows have a Anti-reflective coating.

The Cockpit is also the nickname for Williams-Brice Stadium, the football stadium for the South Carolina Gamecocks.