Situational awareness was the buzzphrase at NBAA as avionics manufacturers showcased advanced display concepts designed to enhance business aviation safety.
With head-up displays (HUDs) being installed in more business jet cockpits, work is accelerating on enhanced vision systems (EVS) and surface guidance systems (SGS) which exploit the HUD.
Gulfstream now expects EVS to be available on the GV in the second quarter of next year. The EVS, which combines a Kollsman infra-red camera with a Honeywell/BAE Systems Visual Guidance System (VGS) HUD, will be standard on the new GV-SP. Thomson-CSF Sextant expects to certificate its Head-up Flight Display System on the Bombardier Global Express "within weeks" and says the Canadian manufacturer is to develop an EVS as the next step.
BAE Systems Canada is offering the VGS on the Global Express as an aftermarket option, and expects certification in November or December. Flight testing of an infra-red EVS is planned to begin in March, and certification of the resulting EVGS is planned for the third quarter, initially to provide improved situational awareness.
Rockwell Collins Flight Dynamics, which has installed its Head-up Guidance System on several aircraft, demonstrated SGS technology at NBAA. This provides runway and taxiway guidance cues based on an airport database and datalinked instructions from air traffic control.
The company plans a ground demonstration in the middle of next year, leading to certification of the initial level of SGS capability in late 2002/early 2003. Work is also under way on EVS sensors, with a system expected to emerge within the next three to four years.
Universal Avionics, meanwhile, has teamed with Flight Visions, a producer of low-cost military HUDs, to develop a system for retrofit into smaller Bombardier Learjet and Cessna Citation business jets. The first certification is set for the end of next year. Universal has also introduced what it calls a "synthetic vision system".
This uses a terrain database to generate 3-D moving maps for more realistic head-down flight and navigation displays, designed to improve situational awareness.
• California-based Sandel Avionics is developing what it claims is the first Class A terrain awareness and warning system (TAWS) computer with an integrated colour display and plans to have the first units certificated and available by June next year.
Sandel chief executive Gerry Block says its $34,000 system provides retrofit solutions for "everything from King Airs to Boeings". The TAWS combines terrain warning with a 3ATI colour display, radio magnetic direction indicator and terrain/runway database.
Source: Flight International