Que hacen todos los controles de una cabina de avión?

Una pregunta inocua en apariencia: Que hacen todos los controles de una cabina de avión? Cuando vió esta pregunta posteada en Quora, el piloto Tim Morgan posteo un ensayo de 9000 palabras sobre como funcionan los aviones modernos, incluyendo, si, que hacen todos esos botoncitos y perillas.

Every airplane is different. Unlike learning to drive a car, you can't just hop from one plane to another. A pilot needs familiarization (and in some cases, a whole new type of license) to fly a different kind of plane. Some are piston-powered; some are jet-powered. Some have electrically-driven controls; some are hydraulically-driven. Some have emergency oxygen; some don't. And so on. All the switches, dials, and knobs in the cockpit control the various aircraft systems, and every aircraft has different systems.