Aircraft

"On high" in this case refers to Honeywell. The maker of the $300,000 certificated synthetic vision primary flight display (SV-PFD) for high-end Gulfstream family business jets is now the owner of a portable, situational awareness SVS tool as part of the electronic flight bag it acquired from Mercury Computer Systems.

As of 1 May, VistaNav became the newest low-cost (less than $10,000) entrant in Honeywell's Bendix/King avionics line when Honeywell signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Mercury for its VistaNav 3D synthetic vision intellectual property.

Clark Badie, business manager for the display and crew interface division at Honeywell, says there was no gap in sales when Honeywell stepped in and that orders remain strong. How Honeywell will diversify its marketing or integrate the new equipment with other systems remains to be seen, especially with the US FAA eyeing new certification requirements.

Usability was a key draw for Honeywell in acquiring the sales and support roles for VistaNav's CIS-1000 Class I EFB, which is manipulated by means of a highly readable touchscreen. The CIS-2000 Class II system incorporates the integrated navigation unit into a computing base and a separate, high-performance interactive cockpit display.

As well as SVS, the black carry-on box offers highway-in-the-sky, flightpath guidance and a "3D" approach display with its primary flight display and multifunction display. In ground mode, the mobile computer can be used as a tablet PC, running Windows-based software. Measuring 5.8cm (2.3in) thick, the computer mounts inside the cockpit and links wirelessly to other components.

The VistaNav 1000 System costs $4,499 and the VistaNav 2000 System $6,999, but new prices will be announced at AirVenture in Oshkosh in the last week of July, along with strategies for Honeywell's new product.

Situational awareness

With 3D solid-state inertial sensors and a WAAS (wide area augmentation system)-enabled GPS receiver, devices like VistaNav have quickly outpaced the capabilities the FAA had anticipated for such situational awareness tools when first encountered in the late 1990s, says Ric Peri, Aircraft Electronics Association vice-president of government and industry affairs. "It may be intended for situational awareness and not for instrument flight rules use, but I've never met a pilot who didn't use all the technology available in the aircraft," he adds.

Regardless of how crisp the 3D image of a runway covered in fog might appear on the screen, users of VistaNav, and the handful of other available general aviation synthetic vision systems, for that matter, cannot take off using the equipment. "It's just there to look good," says Peri.

The US FAA, through RTCA, is developing minimum performance rules for SVS, which will include possible operational benefits for using the equipment to take off and land as if flying with visual flight rules in instrument conditions. Those standards could lead to technical standard orders (TSO) criteria in the post-2010 timeframe, giving manufacturers clear guidance on how to build certifiable systems.

VistaNav officials point to costs of the certification process as the reason high-end products cost tens of thousands of dollars more. SVS maker Chelton Flight Systems, a subsidiary of Cobham, says its certificated products pack in more value. The company's single-screen SVS is priced at $18,000 installed, its dual-screen system $25,000.

Blue Mountain Avionics and Chelton Flight Systems have seniority in the SVS field, with competing claims of being the pioneer in the experimental aircraft world. Blue Mountain's electronic flight information system was operating in 1997 and its 3D system went airborne in 2000. Chelton's prototype was active in 1998, with first delivery in 1999.

Experimental aircraft builders and owners of all Lancair single-engine aircraft are buying Chelton systems, as are owners of RV kits, Velocity, Glassair, and others. The latest customers can buy what Chelton promotes as "the first and only GPS, Airdata and attitude heading reference system optimised for reliability."

Within limits

Gordon Pratt, Cobham avionics and surveillance vice-president of business development and Chelton Flight Systems company co-founder, says it is not hard to work within the limits of the experimental world.

"To be legal for IFR in an experimental aircraft, the GPS must meet the performance standards for the operations in question," says Pratt. "Amazingly, you do not need a TSO for the equipment used you simply must meet the performance standard according to the test results the manufacturer supplied to them. If you - the manufacturer of the aircraft - ascertain that the unit meets the performance standards for the operation in question, then you are legal for those operations."

If the FAA in the future requires today's non-certificated systems to be certificated, says Blue Mountain's Greg Richter, they will need to update their criteria. "Certification doesn't make it better or make it good, it makes it blameworthy, in my opinion."

Blue Mountain's top-end system, the EFIS/One, retails for $14,975 while its lowest-cost, smallest EFIS/Lite sells for $3,495.

The basic building blocks for these competing systems are the same, he notes, with the first being the US Geological Service's Defence Terrain Elevation Database and NASA's Shuttle Research Topography Mission for terrain data. Richter says the Blue Mountain database has three arc-second data - one elevation point for every 90 x 90m (295 x 295ft) of terrain.

By comparison, Honeywell's SV-PFD database contains six arc-second terrain data in the near field (22km/12nm ahead) and 12 arc-second data in the far field (22km out to 65km), values appropriate to corporate type operations.

Cell towers

"The big scary thing for pilots is cell towers, because cell towers are sprouting like weeds," says Richter. He points out that Blue Mountain discovered a 64m (212ft) tower erected in 1962 that has been missing from two commercially available obstacle registries.

Blue Mountain issues about four software releases a year for its experimental aircraft synthetic vision products, which will become complicated when the company has to certificate its equipment. "Once you've certificated it, I can't change it without going back through certification, which freezes the technology, which I don't want to do," says Richter.

Blue Mountain Avionics' EFIS/One provides synthetic vision, navigation displays and top-down terrain maps for less than $15,000

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