September 24, 200916 yr Hi there,Just out of curiosity, what is the purpose of the 3rd CDU which is in many wide-body, long-range aircraft? It is normally located toward the back of the centre pedestal. Such examples can be found in the MD-11, and the Boeing 747-400. Considering the the norm is 2 crew members operating the aircraft, it really does seem strange to me that there should be another CDU for what appears to be a Flight Engineer. Even if the aircraft is carrying a relief crew or a jumpseat passenger, there is still only 2 people operating the aircraft. Andrew McCluskey
September 24, 200916 yr Hi there,Just out of curiosity, what is the purpose of the 3rd CDU which is in many wide-body, long-range aircraft? It is normally located toward the back of the centre pedestal. Such examples can be found in the MD-11, and the Boeing 747-400. Considering the the norm is 2 crew members operating the aircraft, it really does seem strange to me that there should be another CDU for what appears to be a Flight Engineer. Even if the aircraft is carrying a relief crew or a jumpseat passenger, there is still only 2 people operating the aircraft.The 3rd CDU on the lower aisle stand in the -400 is for backup. Simply if the other 2 CDU's fail the 3rd is there.
September 24, 200916 yr Also, you can devote that one to stand by nav and ACARS. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Zachary Waddell -- Caravan Driver -- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/zwaddell Avsim ToS Avsim Screenshot Rules
September 26, 200916 yr Well there is a 3rd CDU for Convenience Redundancy in case of failure Flight Engineer and other crew member (Which are still on many long haul flights), infact on 747 and md-11 vids, you will usually see a flight engineer, or the flight engineer will be the one videotaping. Because of FAA and ICAO regulations if I remember correctly, a pilot must take a mandatory rest period after 7 hours of flying (depending on how long the flight is, this may increase). So there are always at least 3 people in the cockpit on long hauls. Plus, godforbid, if something happens to someone in the cockpit, there will be 2 people ready to takeover and help each other with regaining control, checklists, figuring out the problem, etc See You In The Skies...gman!"Impossible things are simply those which so far have never been done." - Elbert Hubbard
September 27, 200916 yr Usually relegated to ACARS duty for dispatch comms. Jim Driscoll, MSI Raider GE76 12UHS-607 17.3" Gaming Laptop Computer - Blue Intel Core i9 12th Gen 12900HK 1.8GHz Processor; NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 16GB GDDR6; 64GB DDR5-4800 RAM; Dual M2 2TB Solid State Drives.Driving a Sony KD-50X75, and KDL-48R470B @ 4k 3724x2094,MSFS 2020, 30 FPS on Ultra Settings. Jorg/Asobo: “Weather is a core part of our simulator, and we will strive to make it as accurate as possible.”Also Jorg/Asobo: “We are going to limit the weather API to rain intensity only.”
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