What feedback do fighter pilots get when their plane is damaged, and how do they know whether to abort?

I remember once being told a story about the design of a UK fighter plane and a US fighter plane. On the UK fighter plane, the system designers were very proud of their amazing new high technology approach. Whenever the system encountered difficulties (or damage), it would announce the problem using a synthesised voice and provide a summary of the plane’s key statistics and, most importantly, its current range. Surprise surprise, pilots hated it because they were massively overloaded with information.





The designers of the US plane took a totally different approach. The only form of feedback used by this system was a bell. The system did a bunch of calculations in the background based on various factors. If the bell didn’t sound, the mission was accomplishable. The sounding of the bell simply signified “abort mission”.





I’d like to know if this story is true, or if there is any other publicly available information out there on this subject. Thanks!|||Most cockpits will have a section called "caution warning". These are just idiot lights that enunciate things like; engine rpm, rotor failure, high G's, over-speed, etc. Some cockpits will also have a master-alarm. This is either light when several flight parameters reach critical or a certain threshold of failures is reached. I have heard of aircraft with a silhouette that indicates problems in aircraft regions but have never actually seen it.|||Why do u not get trained as a figher pilot and learn first hand? Otherwise how does the information make any sense to u either way.|||I can't see that a bell would be practical, specific problems would cause some missions to be aborted, but not others. I work on F-18's and, believe it or not, pilots still rely on checklists and good judgement to decide wether or not to abort a mission, (and the imput of an experienced tech) The F-18 does have a synthesized voice, but it is there only to inform the pilot of critical information, not to decide for him (or her) if the mission is a "go" or not.