Launch customer London Air Services to install system in a new ultra-long-range aircraft set for delivery in 2011
Bombardier Aerospace will take integrated avionics to a higher plane with the introduction at the National Business Aviation Association Convention in Atlanta of the Global Vision flightdeck for the Global 5000 and Global Express XRS ultra-long-range business jets.
The system will feature the Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 Fusion, the avionics maker's next-generation Pro Line 21 platform, in a panel and "flight environment" created by Design Q, design consultants for "aircraft interiors, luxury cars, motorbikes and super-yachts", according to the company.
Launch customer London Air Services, based in Vancouver, Canada, will install the system in a new Global Express XRS set for delivery in 2011. London Air owns a fleet of Bombardier business jets as well as several AgustaWestland AW139 executive helicopters. Bombardier expects to certificate Global Vision in the third quarter of 2010.
Perhaps the most impressive element of Vision will be Pro Line 21 Fusion, a package that will provide pilots with new levels of situational awareness and enhanced decision-making tools. Included will four 15in (380mm) high-resolution active matrix liquid crystal displays and the Collins Head-up Guidance System, with flightpath guidance and energy management tools.
The cockpit will probably showcase the first operational application of synthetic vision fused with infrared-based enhanced vision on the same primary flight display. Collins is developing the synthetic vision system, which provides a computer generated image of the environment from a terrain and obstacle database. The enhanced vision system is CMC Electronics' SureSight i-Series. Gulfstream and Honeywell are working on a similar synthetic vision and enhanced vision system package for executive aircraft, although the information is not being fused.
Also significant will be the addition of the Collins RTA-4100 MultiScan weather radar technology, a feature now available only to the airline market. The radar provides a 555km (300nm) look-ahead capability, automatic operations and turbulence detection and alerting capability out to 74km.
Collins says Fusion will also include more intuitive interface to the pilot, with information windows, phase-of-flight sensitive data, including checklists and charts that automatically update, and voice recognition capabilities.
Fusion is one of two major announcements for Collins at NBAA, the other being the launch of the company's Venue cabin management system, created with the help of an industrial designer the company hired for the project. The launch customer is Cessna for the CJ4, a larger-cabin, longer-range version of the CitationJet, set to be certificated in 2009 and enter service in 2010.
Collins says Venue is the first high definition video distribution system available for aircraft, allowing passengers to play Xbox 360 and Blu-Ray DVDs on 9 x 16in high-definition displays. Included will be docking stations for iPods and iPhones, making it possible for passengers to plug in the devices and access their information through the cabin's video and audio systems. Control devices for Venue will feature programmable soft buttons and an icon-based graphical user interface.
Source: Flight International
