The initial cockpit design and the thoughts behind it were covered in the article ThrustSSC's Cockpit in 1995. Since then things have moved on: when the last article was written, the cockpit and canopy were still being completed and instruments were still being made for the Car. Now the Car is complete and has been run 33 times including 13 runs on the desert in Jordan, which has given us a chance to finish the vehicle, test it and change it where necessary, preparing for the biggest race in land speed history - the race to Supersonic against Craig Breedlove in Nevada this year.
This is the latest state of the cockpit instruments and is substantially different to the original design mentioned above. For instance:
The layout of the instruments had to be changed once the cockpit and the canopy (under which the instrument panels sit) was finished - hence the curved top and the split into 2 parts.
Each panel is removable so that if there is a problem with one of the instruments the whole panel is removed, fixed in the workshop (or Pit Trailer in the desert) and then replaced - this is much quicker and simpler than trying to work on it in the Car.
Overall though the same basic principles of instrument design - primary and secondary displays, and arranging in functional groups, still applies - and it works!
The initial plan was for the whole of the cockpit interior to be painted light grey (an ideal colour for display surrounds), but the brushed Aluminium of the instrument panels gives the same effect (and looked so good) that they have simply been lacquered and left with their metallic finish.
Because of the room constraints, the secondary displays such as the fuel and battery gauges have had to be digital instead of analogue. This is not a problem for 'low workload' instruments like these which will only be used when the Car is stationary.
The thrust balance meter is the same body as the hydraulic gauges and is hence square rather than the initial round design - but still works just as well and has already proved very useful for monitoring the engines.
The primary instrument for the Car is the Air Speed Indicator (air speed is used because it is independent of batteries or computers and therefore will not fail if something else does). This is a converted Phantom gauge reading 0-1000 mph!
The Mach Meter has recently been replaced for 2 reasons: the new instrument is more accurate (the needle moves around less under vibration, which is important at 700+ mph!), and the gauge is also multi-function (when it is not needed for Mach readings, e.g. at low speed, the gauge can be used for instance to show deceleration, which it was doing on the runway at Farnborough). The new ThrustSSC watch by Timex is a copy of the face of the new Mach Meter, which has a red line at the all-important Mach 1.0 (see the Thrust Shop for details). ThrustSSC is the only car in the world with a Mach Meter...
A new instrument, added after the Car ran in Jordan last year - it is the only primary instrument with a digital display, but in this case it is the easiest way to display the information. The very first cockpit design included a Mach meter with built-in distance-to-go reading, but this proved very difficult to manufacture and the idea was dropped. Having run the Car last year, the 'STOP' light was not used but a distance-to-go would have been useful in the limited Al Jafr desert - so it's been added in the STOP light's place. It will also come in useful in Black Rock to time the chute deployment and braking to try and stop opposite the turn-round team: after all, we'll be setting records and every minute counts in the 1 hour available to make the return run.
The rest of the captions and instruments have changed little over the last year. Hopefully this will be more-or-less the final layout, but if we need to add anything it is relatively easy to do, thanks to the amazing talents of the SSC team.
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