Friday, May 13, 2005

Whoop, Whoop! Pull Up!

When kids visit the flight deck before or after a flight, the captain often demonstrates how our airplane "talks" by pressing the GPWS test button, which yeilds "Terrain, Terrain, Pull Up! Whoop Whoop, Pull Up!" The kids are invariably delighted. You would've thought the designers would've used a less amusing, more threatening voice & sound to warn pilots of an impending crash into the rocks.

Just a thought.

3 comments:

NovemberChild said...

One of the funniest things I heard was (I believe it was in the airbus) but there is a warning that tells the pilots to "retard"

A flight attendent told me that it is funny to hear the computer warning system calling the pilots "retards" :)

Sam Weigel said...

Heh, yeah, it's on the A320. The computer voice counts down the radar altitude, & then says "retard, retard." That airplane is so automated, I'm surprised they didn't design it to retard the throttles itself. I guess they wanted the pilots to feel marginally in control.

Anonymous said...

I once heard (can't remember which a/c) that they had to change the voice (sultry female) because pilots weren't reacting fast enough in the sim when she would give warnings =)