I saw this Mig21FL cockpit of IAF and thought....DAMN.
But then again i have never seen a picture of A-5 pit. I've heard so much about it.
Wanna see an A-5 cockpit. Here it is.
The big drum type thing that seems to have been designed to block the view and piss the pilot off , is actually a gun camera that captures the images of the sight infront of it when a trigger is pressed...
On the left half are generally flight instruments (speed indicator, mach meter, altimeter etc) and the right half has the engine instruments (Exhaust gas temperature, RPM, fuel counter etc). Don’t bother about the million buttons and haphazard switches that are basically put at various places to increase the workload of pilot..( no pun intended)
Note the Throttle quadrant on the left side of pic, the right throttle is the main one and the left throttle ( not seen in picture) is a very small lever that is attached to the right throttle. The two buttons behind throttles are for Military power and the After burner switches. When throttles are full forward and you press the forward button, you will get your after burners ON.
In the centre is the control stick and the odd looking lever attached to the stick is actually your brakes. Oh yes….Majority of older Chinese (Russian) jets have hand operated brakes. Russians were smart to think of another utility of your right hand.
Although seems odd, but A-5s cockpit is much organised and orderly than the cockpit of F-6 ( Mig-19) that was perhaps purposely designed to scare off the light hearted pilots.
Anyway, PAF is gradually getting off the era of analogue and moving to digital one. With lesser work load in cockpit, the pilot performance is likely to improve and hence better combat results...