Cockpit Ergonomics
A comfortable cockpit is more than just convenience. It also helps counter tiredness and fatigue during long flights.
Comfort is thereby an important contribution to both performance and active safety.
Designed according to workplace ergonomic standards, the cockpit of the Antares can be adjusted to perfectly fit almost any pilot. The seat bottom moves up and forward for smaller pilots. This lets small and large pilots have their eyes at approximately the same level, and ensures that stick and instruments always are in the optimal position.
The rudder pedals move away from each other when adjusted for shorter pilots, this avoids the well known problem of shorter pilots only reaching the outer parts of the pedals when flying an aircraft with a centrally mounted instrument console.
The backrest is spring loaded using a slow moving gas spring, and can easily be adjusted in flight. An adaption kit making the seat even wider in the hip region is available as an option, as is a separate headrest which makes it possible for especially tall people to fly without the adjustable backrest, yielding more cockpit space without reducing safety or comfort..
Hydraulically operated Landing gear
The landing gear of the Antares 18S/T is operated hydraulically. This reduces the number of large levers and handles in the cockpit. The landing gear is a spring loaded mechanism which only requires hydraulic power to retract. Landing gear extension is also possible with no batteries connected.
Left hand controls
Levers for flaps, (air)brakes and propulsion control (18S/T) are all situated on the left hand side of the cockpit. Combined with the utilization of an electrohydraulic landing gear retraction with the landing gear switch in the instrument board, this allows the pilot to keep his right hand on the joystick at all time, avoiding hand switches, and making all levers blind operable.
Landing Gear Suspension
The specially designed landing gear suspension and the large 5”- wheel offers a high comfort standard during ground handling as well as extra safety in the case of a crash. The landing gear is equipped with dual gas springs with optimized force-stroke characteristics. This means that, if a load is applied relatively slowly, as is the case during taxiing and normal landings, then the large available stroke of the gas springs will minimize vertical accelerations in the cockpit and maximize comfort. At the same time, fast load applications, as found during a crash situation, results in the gas springs stiffening, and leading the crash energy into special energy absorbtion elements without the gas spring reaching their limits thus avoiding instabilities in the resulting cockpit deceleration.
Disk brake
The main wheel of the Antares 18S/T is standard equipped with a hydraulically activated disk brake incorporating a pressure limiter. This ensures powerful but well controlled braking action on all surfaces. The brake power is applied over the airbrake handle.
Steerable Tail Wheel
Ground control, including takeoff with heavy crosswind, is made easy by the steerable tail wheel and wingtip wheels.
Rigging Aid
The much praised rigging aid which makes it easy to single handedly rig the Antares 20E is available as an option. The rigging aid reduces the effort of rigging the Antares 18S/T to a comfortable minimum.
One person can rig the aircraft alone, but as always, being two people makes things slightly more pleasant and convenient.
Automatic control hookup
All controls are automatically hooked up correctly when the Antares is being rigged. The horizontal stabilizer is rigged and connected without the use of any tool.
High quality parts
No effort is spared to ensure that metal parts have an as long as possible corrosion free part life. Extensive use is made of gas sealed welding and surface treatments commonly found in civil and military aviation result in parts with a very high corrosion resitance.
Details like the automatic connectors for flaperon and airbrake controls utilize a combination of clever design and advanced surface treated to prevent corrosion on the inside. Steel parts in the cockpit are chrome coated to avoid corrosion due to acids in hand sweath.
The cockpit interior uses high quality fabrics and glarefree Nextel softtouch paints. The slender stick grip is equipped with a hand-sewn leather cover.
Antares 18S/T: Performance through pleasure