Ever wondered what all those switches, dials and levers do in the cockpit of an airplane? We did too, so we asked a pilot.



Gerhard Ramcke, of Latvian airline airBaltic, gave CNN Travel a tour of the flight deck of a brand spanking new Airbus A220-300 as the aircraft was making its debut earlier this year.
The controls of the super-modern aircraft bear little resemblance to the clunky mechanisms found in older planes though -- the A220-300 is fully digital. Its state-of-the-art touchscreens more closely resemble something from a spacecraft than an airplane.

"It's a full glass cockpit," says Ramcke, gesturing around the flight deck. "No round dial instruments anymore. All of the data is projected onto these screens." The A220's Flight Management System is a computer system that automates a wide range of inflight tasks.