'Star Wars' tech to keep pilots airborne

The recent so-called "snowpocalypse" laid the north-east corner of America low and threw the festive travel plans of thousands of people into chaos because planes, trains and automobiles really couldn't go anywhere.

Take a look at this video called "Idiot with a Tripod" by film maker Jamie Stuart to show how it all looked on Boxing Day.

It has been estimated that the snow storms resulted in the cancellation of as many as 4,000 flights in and out of New York alone.

But one Fortune 100 company thinks that the devastation to flight schedules and travel plans needn't have been that bad if the technology they are developing had been in play.

Honeywell's Synthetic Enhanced Vision System has been described as something straight out of Star Wars that allows pilots to "see" even when true visibility is at zero.

"Pilots know how to fly an aircraft by looking out the window. It's the first thing they learn to do, but in bad weather or low visibility that isn't enough", said Chad Cundiff who is the vice president in charge of the SEVS project.

"What we can do with our technology is give a pilot a view of the world that is always clear and sunny regardless of what goes on outside his cockpit. We show a pilot what he really cares about like where is the runway, we show the airport, the terrain and mountains.
 
"We don't show clouds because obviously one of the benefits of the technology is to see through the clouds - to have it appear like a clear sunny day even when it is not. We can also show the energy, fuel being used, the state of the aircraft, how fast it is going and which direction they are heading to, if they have enough energy (fuel) to clear a particular mountain and where the aircraft is going to end up."

The system dubbed SEVS relies on a number of technologies including a rich 3D view of the world taken from a GPS database to real time images captured by infrared sensors that would show any planes or obstacles on the strip that otherwise couldn't be seen by looking out the cockpit window.

Mr Cundiff said Honeywell's "terrain database" is made up of data gathered over 800 million flight hours.

The biggest problem for most airports is low visibility. The Federal Aviation Authority reports that 55% of all flight delays are due to bad weather.

Generally speaking if an aircraft cannot see the runway at a height of 200ft, it will not be able or allowed to land. Mr Cundiff said Honeywell's system can lop at least 50ft off that limit.

"Our analysis shows that airports shut down because of weather and that what we find is that 50% of the time that additional 50 feet would open an airport up 50% of the time it is shut down. In other words we would be able to cut down in half the amount of airports that have to close because of weather issues."

Think about the amount of money an airport and an airline can save if they are able to take off and land without the weather grounding them. Also think of the expense when an aircraft has to land at an alternative airport because weather prevented it landing where it was scheduled to.

Mr Cundiff said that on average the cost of diverting a Boeing 737 jet is around $6,000 (£3,861.42).

Honeywell is busy testing their product and working with the authorities to consider using it.

To date Mr Cundiff told the BBC that Honeywell had clocked up 100 flight hours in tests involving aircraft and 1,000 flight hours in the lab. He estimated that it would be about five to 10 years before the system was deployed in commercial jets.

His belief is that business jets will be the first to use SEVS because "they tend to adopt technology a little bit faster and that is because they can make purchase decisions easier than airlines can".

The system is presently being tested by the military especially in helicopters because "they operate low to the ground and need that real-time obstacle awareness," added Mr Cundiff.

Bill Voss, president and chief executive officer of the Flight Safety Foundation said he is intrigued by what SEVS promises it can do.

"This technology represents an important synthesis of synthetic information and enhanced vision. Both technologies have important benefits and both have combined seamlessly in this new technology. It opens up a whole new set of opportunities in the area of human factors.
 
"About a third of major airline accidents involve runway excursions (running off the runway). This technology integrates information that makes a pilot continuously aware of how much energy has to be dissipated, and where he or she is likely to touch down. That is a very important advantage.
 
"The addition of infrared vision adds another safety component. It allows the pilot to see objects on the runway such as animals, people, cars or other aircraft. Often these are invisible due to darkness and poor visibility. This system will put those objects right in the pilots face. It clearly adds another layer of protection."

Honeywell admits that while their system would have made quite a dent in the travel devastation caused by the recent snowstorms, it would not have eradicated the problem altogether.

"When you have got a few feet of snow on a runway, you are not going to take off. This technology doesn't melt snow and besides no-one wants to land in a blizzard. It makes the passengers nervous," said Mr Cundiff.

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