Astronics Corporation through its wholly-owned subsidiary Astronics Max-Viz, commended the Federal Aviation Administration’s General Aviation Joint Steering Committee (GAJSC) for recent statements in support of enhanced vision technology to improve general aviation safety in situations involving weather, night, smoke and other obstructions to vision. Max-Viz develops Enhanced Vision Systems (EVS) that enable increased pilot visibility, especially in darkness and adverse weather conditions.
“In a recent Safety Briefing from the Federal Aviation Administration, the GAJSC wrote it had concluded that Enhanced and Synthetic Vision technology can significantly improve general aviation utility and reduce the chance of accidents during night and instrument metrological conditions,” said Elliott Troutman, Astronics Max-Viz EVP.
“This official FAA recognition of the safety advantages of enhanced vision and the attention it brings to this potentially lifesaving technology is very important for all general aviation pilots,” Troutman added. “Getting this word out to the pilot community and the fact that this relatively inexpensive flying technology can save lives is really crucial for all facets of general aviation.”
The FAA’s recent statements indicated, that enhanced vision “technologies fall into two categories, Enhanced Vision (EV) and Synthetic Vision (SV). EV systems use sensors to provide a better view of the outside world. These sensors can be something like infrared or radar, each of which have their own advantages and disadvantages. Of course, it’s nice to be able to see wildlife and other obstructions on the runway, but they’re also quite useful in depicting terrain in bad weather or on a dark night…”
Per the FAA, “SV differs from EV in that it doesn’t use sensors to ‘see’ outside. Instead SV relies on GPS information and a database to create a virtual representation of the world outside… Almost as important as what you are displaying is how you are displaying it. A Head Up Display (HUD) is an ideal way of displaying EV/SV information, but these are expensive and fairly rare in most of GA. Most GA systems are displayed through a cockpit Multifunction Display (MFD) or Primary Flight Display (PFD). No matter which display method you use, be sure you train with it enough to be proficient before taking it out ‘in the soup.'” For the complete briefing go to: https://www.faa.gov/news/safety_briefing/2015/media/SE_Topic_15-12.pdf.