[correnos]

They suck. I've flown in a Cessna with a touchscreen transponder, and it was nearly impossible to enter the required four-number code in light turbulence.

edit: That said, you could probably make a decent aviation touchscreen. The main issue with off-the-shelf screens is it's easy to brush the wrong thing. A screen that takes significant pressure to register a touch would probably be usable, and for all I know this system might do that.

[kakarot]

Well, there's your next startup idea.

[olympus]

It's not really a startup idea, it's just a bad choice that was made when equipping the plane (often the manufacturer's choice, not the purchaser's). Button and dial based options exist for every instrument and piece of avionics, even modern systems. The person making the equipment selection just fell victim to slick advertising photos instead of practicality, or got conned into buying a Lynx because they thought they were getting some sort of deal.

[_djo_]

Already exists. The only aircraft touchscreens I've used have been those from MGL Avionics [0], which required a firm intentional press and provided feedback.

There's no reason to use screens that trigger on just a light touch.

[0]: http://www.mglavionics.co.za/iEFIS.htm

[crististm]

Real knobs _work_ and _worked_ for the past 100 years. You could replace them with touch screens if their advantages were compelling.

[leetcrew]

the key advantage that touchscreens have is that they show many different displays to expose different controls and information, while a physical panel necessarily offers less functionality in the same cockpit area.

i think it would be really nice to combine physical controls with a digital display. either the buttons themselves could have little displays that show different labels depending on which mode you're in, or there could be generic buttons/knobs around the display whose function changes depending on what UI page you're on.

[VLM]

Its interesting that its easier to buy physical flight instruments with alternative units (feet/min m/s or knots for a VSI, for example) than to buy physical flight instruments in foreign languages. Other than some Russian military gear, the whole world uses English language flight instruments. I've never flown outside CONUS the idea of a IFR approach or departure being defined in knots vertical is kinda weird but theoretically possible. Maybe its for balloons or something else non-general aviation.

Being able to load up a touch screen transponder to read "ident" in hebrew or japanese is exciting both for native language familiarity and the inevitable random language changes while in flight. I can imagine the conversations on 121.5 already, "does anyone speak Romanian, my engine computer rebooted and now I can't figure out how to richen up my fuel mixture so I can land" "What is the Korean acronym for what in English is a NDB (non directional beacon)?" or whatever. At least while you're flying in Romania, even if no one speaks English you're at least surrounded by other Romanian speaking pilots also flying English language flight instruments.