46 AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/NOVEMBER 3/10, 2014 AviationWeek.com/awst
John Croft Phoenix
Temporal integration future-proofs
Honeywell flight deck
T
hree words best describe a suite of new software tools
Honeywell is building for its Primus Epic integrated flight
decks: seamless situational awareness. From turning on
the master switch in pre-flight to setting the parking brake
post-flight, business aviation or airline pilots using the new
applications will gain hyper-awareness of their condition and
surroundings with displays and symbology that present the
appropriate information at the right time, smoothly transition-
ing from one phase to the next. The new applications will hit
the market in the next 2-3 years.
Honeywell is particularly driven to give pilots an edge in
the high-density, low-visibility operations that are critical
to the FAA’s plan to boost efciency and capacity with the
Next-Generation Air Transportation system (Nextgen). Of
primary interest are taxi, takeof, approach and landing op-
erations, for which Honeywell is increasingly using designs
that transform computationally intensive tasks into visually
simple graphical solutions with displays and symbology that
communicate directly with the visual cortex of the brain. The
idea is to eliminate mental calculations that can delay action
or prompt the wrong response.
Honeywell test pilot Sandy Wyatt illustrated the design
goal on an approach into Tucson when I was sitting in the
left seat of Honeywell’s Falcon 900EX EASy experimental
flight-test aircraft one morning in late September. Wyatt, in
the right seat, switched of the SmartVision synthetic vision
guidance system (SVGS) on my primary flight display (PFD)
and replaced it with the legacy blue-over-brown symbology.
My initial reaction was a mental blank as I considered how
to revert to traditional instrument approach techniques.
Wyatt uses a computer analogy to explain that common
reaction.
“You have to switch to a diferent part of your brain to
figure it out,” he says. “You have to start using the CPU as
opposed to the GPU [graphics processing unit].” The GPU
is intuitive, which will be beneficial for newer generations of
airline pilots with less experience. One potential downside,
however, is that the visual display is so compelling that it
could hurt basic instrument flying skills, a situation that may
or may not be detrimental to safety. Either way, regulators
and industry will have to address a new set of issues as flight
decks become more visual and connected over time.
Using a ruggedized laptop in the cabin of the Falcon con-
nected to the left-side and center displays in the cockpit via
a test interface unit, Honeywell principal scientist John Sud-
dreth connected my displays to the prototype Epic software,
including 2-D and 3-D airport moving maps (AMM), cockpit
display of trafc information (CDTI), SVGS and a combined
synthetic and infrared-based enhanced vision system (CVS).
The applications are in two stages of design maturity: prod-
uct code for CDTI, 2-D and 3-D AMM; and advanced tech-
nology code for SVGS and CVS. The product code has com-
pleted flight testing and needs only minor tweaks before it
becomes certified under the FAA’s rigorous DO-178B software
assurance design standards. The advanced technology code
requires continued flight testing before being “turned over”
to the product group for formal trials in advance of certifica-
tion eforts. Honeywell says all four of the applications will be
available as options for the entire Primus Epic-based cockpits
fleet as soon as 2016.
The benefits of the new applications were apparent even
before we started the N889H’s three engines at Honeywell’s
at Phoenix Deer Valley Airport hangar. Wyatt powered up
the avionics, with three of the four 14.1-in displays (the pri-
mary flight display and two center multifunction displays)
using non-certified Epic code from Suddreth’s laptop. Wyatt
progressively zoomed in on the airport, bringing up a high-
definition 2-D airport map with labeled runways, taxiways
and buildings at a 2-nm zoom range and below. Traffic is
displayed at all zoom levels using the installed Automatic
Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast “In” avionics.
En route to Tucson, Wyatt demonstrated how the CDTI
application allows the crew to place the cursor on displayed
targets to obtain information, highlight aircraft or take part
in Nextgen practices including in-trail spacing and mergingEpic Immersion
NEXT-GENERATION AVIONICSHoneywell test pilot Sandy Wyatt uses a 3-D synthetic
vision taxi tool on the primary flight display during a
HONEYWELL/GEORGE TENNEY recent flight.
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