Modern helicopter avionics enhance safety and situational awareness
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EXECUTIVE BRIEFING Modern helicopter avionics enhance safety and situational awareness Controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) and inadvertent instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) continue to be costly for the rotorcraft community. The effects of helicopter accidents are far-reaching and long-lasting. Avionics technology firms are proactively working with industry organizations to enhance flight crew situational awareness and increase safety. Download this free, informative guide to learn how helicopter operators, airframe manufacturers (such as AgustaWestland, Korea Aerospace, and Sikorsky), professional helicopter organizations (such as IHST), and technology innovators (including Sandel Avionics, Garmin, Honeywell, and Rockwell Collins) are working together and putting modern avionics into action to reduce helicopter accidents and fatalities. Enhancing pilot situational awareness for increased safety All collaborate on helicopter crash test

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Enhancing pilot situational awareness for increased safety Modern helicopter avionics technologies enhance situational awareness to increase safety and reduce common aviation accidents. By Courtney E. Howard viation accidents can have far-reaching effects and often unforeseen consequences. Rather than recoiling in reaction to helicopter-related fatalities, the rotorcraft community has banded together and taken a proactive approach—advancing cockpit avionics technologies to aid in reducing unfortunate aviation incidents, assisting pilots, and bolstering safety. Industry & government partner...

Enhancing pilot situational awareness for increased safety Helicopter Safety Team (IHST). IHST is a global group of industry and government professionals working in concert toward an aggressive goal: to reduce the worldwide helicopter accident rate by 80 percent in 10 years (by 2016). The IHST developed and implemented a “data-driven, benefit-focused safety program designed to continuously reduce the risk of helicopter accidents,” describes a representative. “The IHST chartered a Joint Helicopter Safety Analysis Team (JHSAT) to develop data-driven safety recommendations in pursuit of the...

Enhancing pilot situational awareness for increased safety challenging terrain and involve off-airport takeoffs and landings, notes a spokesperson at Sandel Avionics in Vista, Calif. “Helicopters routinely operate below 500 feet above ground level (AGL); obstacles and especially power lines are a threat to helicopter operations throughout the mission, not just at takeoff and landing.” Curtailing causes Controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) and inadvertent instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) are associated with a great many helicopter accidents and, therefore, the focus of many safety...

Enhancing pilot situational awareness for increased safety “A CFIT accident occurs when an airworthy aircraft, experiencing no contributory systems or equipment problems, under the control of a certificated, fully qualified flight crew no suffering from any impairment, is flown into terrain (or water or obstacle) with no demonstrated prior awareness of the impending collision on the part of the crew. Or, if the flight crew was aware of the impending collision, they were unable to prevent it,” Phillips wrote, referencing David Spiller of the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in...

Enhancing pilot situational awareness for increased safety CFIT is, unfortunately, not an issue to be addressed solely by pilot training and experience.” Similarly, Moroze and Snow concluded in their 1999 paper that “systems are needed to improve flight crew situation awareness, especially terrain awareness.” Tapping technology CFIT remains the leading cause of aviation accidents worldwide, according to a representative at FlightSafety International in Flushing, N.Y. Yet, new developments in aircraft technology can increase a pilot’s awareness of terrain. Sandel Avionics officials agree,...

Enhancing pilot situational awareness for increased safety system (HTAWS), in-flight weather, traffic, back-up radios, and communications, we not only improve safety of flight, but make the pilot’s and crew’s life a lot easier.” The Garmin GTN 750/650 features a helicopter-specific obstacle database with nearly 30,000 low-altitude obstacles, as well as a navigation database with heliports and high-resolution terrain. “For added safety, optional HTAWS provides five-color shading to show nearby terrain in proximity to your helicopter, and provides voice callouts when descending below 500...

Enhancing pilot situational awareness for increased safety path and terrain or an obstacle that the pilot might not see, such as radio towers or buildings. “As a result of EGPWS, the risk of controlled flight into terrain is now 50 times less in Western Europe and North America than it was in 1991, making this one of the biggest success stories in the history of aviation,” Ververs says. “Since the introduction of EGPWS in 1996, Honeywell has received reports of more than 30 incidents where the EGPWS gave an alert and provided pilots with timely awareness of terrain in flight situations.”...

Enhancing pilot situational awareness for increased safety Honeywell SmartView provides helicopter pilots with real-time views of the location of the aircraft in relation to surrounding terrain, and a 3D virtual view outside the cockpit that is unencumbered by visual impediments, such as fog, bad weather, or darkness, Ververs describes. SmartView is also a strategic tool, offering guidance cues, terrain shading and other intuitive prompts to aid helicopter pilots in critical decision-making — ultimately improving pilots’ and passengers’ overall safety, she says. Rotorcraft & TAWS The FAA is...