Pilots make flying an airplane look easy, almost automatic. So what are all those hundreds of buttons and controls in the cockpit for?
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Honestly, *everything* they could hope to control.
The stuff on the ceiling tends to be more mechanical. Turning on lights, redirecting airflow, starting up the Aux Power Unit (APU, the generator in the tail of the plane), windshield wipers, the exterior lights, fuel pumps, power sources, hydraulics and their power sources, pressurization control of the plane, the switch that turns on the Fasten Seatbelt sign, etc. Some are emergency/last ditch controls for things that normally should be done with easier to reach controls, or are duplicate displays for redundancy. The higher up you go, the less likely you are to need to operate them since they get harder and harder to reach while the pilot is in their seat.
Now… this varies by plane, so what I’m describing is the plane I know best (in the big jet category). Just under the windscreen is likely the autopilot controls. You tell it what direction to go, what altitude to fly at, what speed to fly at, or you tell it to abide by the flight plan that’s been programmed.
Under that is where you’ll mostly find the gauges and displays, and buttons that control them. The map screen will let you choose zoom levels, pick what overlays you want to see (terrain and/or weather radar, airports en route, your flight path shown, etc). Your current speed, altitude, heading/compass, are right in front of the pilots here, and engine stats are off to the side.
Between the pilots are the more commonly operated controls… the engines themselves, flaps on the wings, speed brakes, etc. As you go down further you’ll probably find the radio, transponder and radio pathfinder.
There are a lot of switches because there are so many things to be controlled on such a large plane. The pilots are the only ones up there once you’re in the air, and if anything goes wrong they either land or crash. Suffice to say we prefer the former.
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