Direct tactile manipulation of the flight plan in a modern aircraft cockpit

An original experimental approach has been chosen, with an incremental progression from a traditional physical cockpit, to a tactile flight simulator reproducing traditional controls, to a prototype navigation display with direct tactile functionality, first located in the traditional low position, then located in front of pilots in desktop-like setup. The main findings are that naive tactile implementations bring a performance penalty compared to similar physical interfaces, but tactile approaches have a number of assets that will counterbalance this fact.