Am I the only one who thinks MCDUs on modern aircraft appear very „primitive“ in comparison to other advanced aircraft systems?Many times I get myself in problems when entering a star, then changing it upon atis or atc instructions, deleting discontinuities, whatever, but in the end the magenta line forms some psychedelic ornaments and curves not even a humming bird could follow, ha, ha, ha.Before you tell me to go study the manual some more, my point is: with today's technology, couldn't the FMC interface consist of a 12'' (or more) touchscreen with drag&drop, multiple selections and deletions with graphic (windows like) interface, instead of this out-of-date line editor? Both hardware and software should be cheap and simple today, shouldn't it?Daniel Sagner

The key to changing arrivals is to view the LAT REV selection as a paste operation. Whatever you select is simply pasted into the flight plan, so if you pick a fix from which you paste the changed arrival the flight plan sequence will 'fall into place.' Sometimes there is no work around and you have to do a little manual editing.Sure there are newer boxes but the simulation is of the actual aircraft and what you see is how the real thing works. As far as cheap, not ever! Nothing is ever cheap on an aircraft due to the incredible amount of testing and certification and life cycle support that is involved in the product.

After some little study, the FMC and MCDU interfaces can be mastered easily...all the systems are similar each other, with some minor differences....BTW, the newest aircrafts have big touchscreen functioning like CDUs....search for B787, A350 or A380 cockpit's photos...;)...i think that those are what you are searching...Cheers,

Good question, MCDUs seem to be stuck in time somehow. Maybe it's the typical capitalistic approach to things which prevents larger technology changes (i.e. the usage of something that's proven and working and widespread/familiar and instantly available for little money is way more cost effective and controllable than a precarious and probably very expensive venture with unpredictible results money-wise)...

Am I the only one who thinks MCDUs on modern aircraft appear very „primitive“ in comparison to other advanced aircraft systems?

What do you call a "modern" aircraft? The 744 entered service in 1989 IIRC. That means the FMC is that latest technology from the mid 1980's. To put this into perspective, I remember being on the Honeywell site a few years ago, and their latest and greatest FMC had a massive 8MB (that's eight megabytes) of memory.I'm not quite sure I like the idea of drag and drop interfaces you suggest. I find the current system quite sufficient. If you think entering data is difficult in the MD11 FMC, try doing it on a G1000, where you do it by twisting knobs. The line editor is nice and simple. Remember- keep it simple...Paul

As far as cheap, not ever! Nothing is ever cheap on an aircraft due to the incredible amount of testing and certification and life cycle support that is involved in the product.

Dan,seems hard to believe that. I can afford such screen for home use. Look at the IPhone: brilliant TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors, multi-touch input method, 8-16 G mem (bit more than Honeywell's 8M Paul mentioned above). Of course I am not naive to think CDU would cost the price of IPhone, but it shouldn't add another million $ to the aircraft price? Well, knowing your expertise I must assume you're right.

...the newest aircrafts have big touchscreen functioning like CDUs....search for B787, A350 or A380...

Paolo,nice, I didn't know that. Now I'm tempted to post: "PDMG please make one of those" but I would probably get banned ha, ha.

...try doing it on a G1000, where youdo it by twisting knobs. The line editor is nice and simple. Remember- keep it simple...

Paul,twisting knobs? Ugh. Middle Age. Aircraft are among the most complex moving man-made creations. I think that "keep it simple" don't apply.Anyway, thanks for replies guys.Daniel

Dan,seems hard to believe that. I can afford such screen for home use. Look at the IPhone: brilliant TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors, multi-touch input method, 8-16 G mem (bit more than Honeywell's 8M Paul mentioned above). Of course I am not naive to think CDU would cost the price of IPhone, but it shouldn't add another million $ to the aircraft price? Well, knowing your expertise I must assume you're right.

It takes Apple around a year to develop a new iphone.It takes what, 10 years, maybe more, to develop a new airliner? The FMC that's fitted to the airliner might not be a brand new model either, so you might have a 15 year old FMC before the plane's even entered service. At this point you could buy a newer FMC whic might be reasonably priced, but as the FMC is linked into the MCP, autopilots and who knows what else, you'd have to tear out half of the avionics, then go through testing and certification all over again - and that really would cost lots.

I agree but why fix something that works. I have an Iphone 4 and it crashes once a week. Rebooting a computer at the house is a lot easier than doing it at 30,000ft. I do believe the A380 has something that is touch screen with screens that display the FMS and SID/STARS. Once you use the MD-11's FMS you will really enjoy the simplicity of it.

Don't know about you, but do you really want to be flying around on a multi million dollar aircraft with a 600 dollar iphone or crackberry for navigation?.... heheheJR