posted 12-07-2014 05:13 PM
To expand on Jim's answer, it depend on how the lables are being looked at. If the panel were flat and observed like a typical aircraft overhead panel, swapping over the labeling would be confusing, regardless of the controls being over the shoulder. Just look at the overhead panels on helicopters and heavy aircraft. However, the panel diagram is simplified, the real panel is not entirely flat. Reading from the front of the spacecraft to the rear, on the first row of switches and CBs the labels are in front of the controls and slant downwards at an angle to make them easier to read by a crewmember sat behind and facing them.
Row 2 is slanted in the same direction. Rows 3 and 4 are labeled to match 1 and 2. Rows 7 and 6 (from the front, i.e. the back rows) have labels behind the controls, also slanted downwards, but in the opposite direction to the front rows.
So if instead of tilting your head back (i.e. "roll and pitch") you turn your head round ("yaw") to read them the labels now have to be the other way round. Row 5 is flat but orientated to match 7 and 6. The heavy black line between rows 4 and 5 denotes where the label orientation swaps round. Hope that helps. There are a few Gemini photographs that illustrate this.
So it's not simply a matter of the lables being behind the crew member. I think that the reason why they went in a different way to aircraft is due to the crew wearing pressure suits. The crew could twist to look back more easily than they could tilt their heads backwards to look up.
posted 12-07-2014 02:54 PM
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