Definition
The electronic screens in a glass flight deck that present navigation information — including aircraft position, course, route, waypoints, and moving maps — driven by the Flight Management System and other onboard sensors. They replace traditional mechanical navigation instruments such as the course deviation indicator and horizontal situation indicator with integrated graphical displays.
Plain English
The screens in a modern cockpit that show the pilot where the aircraft is, where it's going, and the planned route, all drawn as a moving picture instead of being shown on individual round dial gauges.
Context Anchor
Seen in aircraft with screen-based instrument panels, especially when using a flight management system to build, review, or follow an instrument route.
Derivation
Glass' refers to the LCD screens that replaced the older glass-faced mechanical dials — the cockpit became a wall of screens, hence 'glass flight deck.' 'Navigation displays' simply means the screens dedicated to showing where you are and where you're going.
Why Pilots Care
They combine multiple sources of navigation information into one easy-to-read picture, lowering workload and helping the pilot maintain accurate situational awareness.
Intuition Check
“Glass” does not mean the windshield or cockpit windows here. It means electronic display screens used as flight instruments.
Example Sentence 1
On the glass flight deck navigation displays, the magenta line showed the active route from the current position direct to the next waypoint.
Example Sentence 2
Updated holding instructions appeared directly on the glass flight deck navigation displays after the controller issued the change.