Honeywell is focusing efforts on certification of its new Primus Apex integrated avionics in the Grob SPn and Pilatus PC-12 to avoid the problems experienced with its Primus Epic system, where the company took on too many business and regional jet applications at the same time and ran into delays.
"We are not going to start running after everything," says Honeywell general aviation vice-president John Todd. "We are going to get the system certificated and into service, then apply it to new applications." Apex is already flying in the SPn twinjet and single-turboprop PC-12, with certification on both planned for next year.
Todd says other manufacturers are waiting for Apex, and Honeywell is also eyeing the retrofit market. "But we are not going to take away from our ability to get the job done over the next year - once we are certificated, then we will spread our wings," he says.
Apex draws on technology from the widely used Epic, but is designed to span both the single-pilot Part 23 and two-crew Part 25 market. "Our challenge was to take Part 25 technology and move it down into the Part 23 world," says Todd. As a result, features such as cursor-controlled menus and graphical flight planning have been simplified to reduce single-pilot workload.
Apex includes a new automatic flight-control system that brings coupled vertical navigation, Category 2 approach capability and emergency descent mode to general aviation, says Todd. Other capabilities include uplink weather, Honeywell's runway awareness and advisory system, an integrated electronic flight bag for charts, and digital control of aircraft systems such as pressurisation.
Source: Flight International
