I just thought I'd mention this here, since tragically so few people have ever heard of it: my all-time favorite font is called B612.
B612 is a free and open source font that was designed from inception for use on aircraft cockpit screens specifically. So it was designed with a significant amount of money behind it, to maintain maximum legibility and minimum eye strain across a wide range of conditions, in other words. I've been using it in status bars, window managers, and as the default font for GTK for a few years now. In my experience, it performs about as well as millions of dollars worth of research would have you believe.
It used to be proprietary, but it's now distributed under open source licenses.
No matter who you are, I implore you to give B612 a try, unless you literally don't want the text on your computer to be extremely legible and/or if you enjoy headaches, in which case please don't. My vision is 20/15 naturally and my main monitor is color correct. I can read font most people can't. Looking somewhere on my screen, expecting to see B612, and seeing some other font instead, still irritates me instantly because that's how good it is.
It's free. There's no reason not to try it.
Thank you.
@StephenTallentyre This is fascinating. When watching flight deck videos I really wondered about the fonts and rendering, as the lighting is so varied and at times, pretty harsh.
@sullybiker @StephenTallentyre The original fonts in cockpits were both dreadful and inconsistent. I did a display for a bomber aircraft and tried to license the font used for the avionics but the aircraft manufacturer had lost it.
As well as the font, Airbus also has a consistent colour and sound environment. A specification they also make freely available.