Salon :: Tech & Business

Ask the pilot: Isn't that cockpit a little drab? Perhaps a spider plant, or a simple lithograph, would liven it up!

It's time to get this column out of the cabin and back where it belongs, in the ... cockpit. Cockpit? Where did that word ever come from, anyway? Flight deck, that's what I meant to say. Let's head up to the flight deck, where men are men (except for the 3 percent who are women) and nobody dares talk about interior design. Well, except for me.

The average flight deck is a cozy enough place. The feng shui is sometimes out of balance, but options for rearranging the furniture are limited. As a rule, pilots have to reach their controls and need to see where they're going. The base color is most often gray -- ash-colored consoles, slate-gray sidewalls, gunmetal floors -- giving the room a certain militaristic feel. Boeings are a bit warmer, employing a lot of brown and beige. This dullness is neither accidental nor impractical. The instruments, screens and dials incorporate a great deal of yellow, green, red and blue. Too much surrounding color, and they become harder to discern.

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