Certification flight tests in Brazil mark dual first for commercial airliner. System will be offered as factory option
Embraer and Rockwell Collins Flight Dynamics have begun certification test flights of the first Embraer 190 equipped with dual, second-generation liquid-crystal display (LCD) head-up displays (HUD).
The event marks the first known flight of a dual HUD on a commercial airliner, and is thought to be the first flight of a production standard LCD device.
The dual units were installed on the prototype E-190 at the company's Gaviao Peixoto flight test site in Brazil, before the first flight to Sao Jose dos Campos from where the test programme will be conducted. Launched with a $60 million order from JetBlue Airways in 2004, the HGS 5600 system will be offered as a factory option by Embraer on the E-170/175 and E-190/195 models. "It's a major step," says Rockwell Collins Flight Dynamics, which describes the installation as one of the "biggest developments to have happened to the flightdeck in years".
JetBlue crew will use the HUD for all phases of flight, and it expects the system to help reduce costs by cutting training times and allowing it to use a standard approach procedure. "Using the HGS 5600, every approach will be flown the same way from the left or right seat, regardless of the ground infrastructure, and in good weather or bad," says the avionics maker. Although the device is not being certificated as a primary flight display (PFD), it will be used by the crew as a primary flight reference.
Embraer believes the system will ultimately form the basis for a fully certificated PFD, as well as possibly a key element of a future enhanced vision system. For the moment, Rockwell says the "plan is for the crew to fly the aircraft using the HUD as much as possible".
The LCD technology provides better image quality than the traditional cathode-ray tube based devices in current use. The system is due to be certificated in time for delivery on the first E-190 for JetBlue in August.
This aircraft, E-190 number six, is in Embraer's Hangar 220 final assembly site in Sao Jose dos Campos, and is expected to be structurally complete by the end of May. The aircraft is the first of 100 on firm order for the US low-cost carrier which also holds options on a further 100.
GUY NORRIS/SAO JOSE DOS CAMPOS
Source: Flight International
