Arevolution is under way in avia-tion, though it is easily overlooked. For it is remoulding not the outward appearance of aircraft, but their innards, as two technologies proliferate: cheap, fast and reliable computers, and Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. A handful of companies are combining the two to get rid of the vast arrays of dials that crowd aeroplane cockpits and replace them with a pair of sleek, compact computer screens. While this has been accomplished over the last few years in military aircraft and large airliners, such "glass cockpit" technology is only now filtering down into the smaller aircraft that constitute the vast majority of the world's flying machines. One of the first such systems, built by a company called Avidyne, based in Lincoln, Massachusetts, was approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), America's aviation regulator, in February. And Cirrus, a small planemaker based in Duluth, Minnesota, has obtained FAA approval for using the Avidyne system in instrument-only flight.
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