"That's what it looks like to live in the year 2650," an outsider looking in would think when they first see the functionality of an aircraft HUD, and who could blame them? These things are high tech! We wanted to share more about this interesting piece of technology, so we asked Business Jet pilot, Steven Gonzales to share his knowledge and experience about HUDs. Here's what we learned:
An aircraft's head's up display (HUD) is a piece of equipment, born from military technology, to increase pilot's situational awareness overall. In their basic form, HUDs provide information such as course, speed, altitude and attitude. More complex HUDs will blend synthetic terrain information and even combine that with an EVS (Enhanced Vision System) to provide the pilot with a form of augmented reality that still allows ambient light to pass through.
The HUD allows the pilot to keep pertinent information right in front of them, so they don’t have to look down at their instruments. In situations like a low visibility approach with a HUD, pilots can see the runway environment the moment it appears. In some situations, the decision window to continue a landing or go around is only a matter of seconds, and getting all your information in one spot helps pilots make that decision quickly. It's also very helpful in situations that require a great deal of precision, where speed and heading deviations must be kept to an absolute minimum, such as short runways or complex instrument departures (SIDs), arrivals (STARs) and approaches.
In Steven's years of experience, he has learned that flying the HUD smoothly and accurately takes some practice and skill. Some HUDs are extremely sensitive to roll and pitch information, which can give the illusion that the pilot is making deviations in speed and attitude that in reality are insignificant. Also, it’s important to note that a pilot must train themselves to look THROUGH the HUD and not just focus on the symbology on the screen for this equipment to be optimally effective.
Overall HUDs, are incredibly powerful technology and increase the overall safety on the aircraft by keeping the pilot's situational awareness as high as possible!
The image is a #FalconEyeHUD from @DassaultFalcon - https://lnkd.in/grzaU_4Q:::
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