Instrument panels and logic...?

[francesco.doenz]

I am often suprised at the placement of the switches and gauges on the cockpit panels in different aircrafts, and I am only flying Spit, P47 and P51!? Is there any logic behind the different placement of the instruments in each plane? take for example in the P47 the placment of the fuel level instrument and the fuel low warning light? But I guess there is some reason in each aircraft for the different organisation of the instrument panels, and at the time of WWII the pilots did not fly P47 one day and the P51 the following day, that would have been disastrous....

[Lewis - A2A]

One thing to remember is context, you are talking of a design time when aircraft where still new, they didn't even normally come with proper manuals (The B-17 is famous for coming with a proper useable manual something very few did prior to this).

Its the same story for the instrument placement, its easy to forget that whilst jets and cool things like that came out of WW2 there are many many many many many small little things we take for granted today that also came out of the conflict or where born within. The classic 6 pack and ordering of instruments in aircraft is one of the small things, which is why post WW2 cockpits tend to be so utterly different to pre WW2 cockpits.

thanks,
Lewis

[francesco.doenz]

Yes, and most likely Republic Aviation and NAA did not speak much to each other inspite of being of the same epoch because of competition?!
Thanks for your inputs as always!