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next steps. After revisiting his concept,
Andre did some basic drawings and
discovered it was possible to make a slot-
together version that wouldn’t require any
fixings or tools, however the design was
pretty basic and required proper drawings
via computer-based design tool CATIA.
Andre turned to his Airbus colleague
Laurent Saint-Marc, who uses CATIA every
day in his work on cockpits, and together
they made a small cardboard version of the
cockpit mock-up at an Airbus fabrication
laboratory (FabLab). Afterward, it was
back to Airbus ProtoSpace to make a full-
sized wooden prototype.
The prototype was ready in a few
days, but the surprise was how quickly it
went into use. Werner De Rammelaere,
an Airbus innovation engineer who works
in Emerging Technologies and Concepts,
noticed the kit in ProtoSpace and thought
Build Your Own Cockpit it might be ideal for a project with
automotive manufacturer Continental.
“They’ve been doing research into safety
how a trip to IKEA resulted in a simple-to-construct systems that monitor drivers, and we’ve
wooden cockpit been working with them to explore
possible applications in aviation,” he
THE IkEA SUPERSTORE IN TOULOUSE, and easily-available mock-up would be explained. “Continental wanted to use
France isn’t the obvious starting place for extremely useful for early testing of ideas. mock-ups and simulators, but there is
an innovative approach to one of aviation’s “After a trip to look at some furniture (at huge demand on these, so I suggested
most intensively technical areas. Never- IKEA), it occurred to me that a simple- that they drive over and pick up a cockpit
theless, it was this home retailer’s ready- to-construct, wooden version of a cockpit kit instead.”
to-assemble furniture that gave Airbus would do the job very well,” he explained. The kit met all of Continental’s
systems designer Raphael Andre an idea The idea stuck with Andre, however he requirements, so the team had to make
that already is proving its value: the flat- didn’t take action until a couple of years another prototype for themselves.
pack cockpit kit. later after a visit to Airbus ProtoSpace “We’ve already had some interest from
Andre, whose work at the time in Toulouse – a facility that enables and colleagues in A320 development and
centred on cockpit-related research and encourages innovators, and has the there are ergonomic applications too, so
technology, believed that an inexpensive prototyping equipment needed for the we might need more,” Andre concluded.

Werner De Rammelaere, an Airbus innovation engineer
who works in Emerging Technologies and Concepts, noticed
the kit in ProtoSpace and thought it might be ideal for a
project with automotive manufacturer Continental

34 ASIAN AIRLINES & AIRPORTS MARCH / APRIL 2015 WWW.ASIANAIRLINES-AIRPORTS.COM