Professional Pilot, May 2017

agement and accounting departments on the value that the extra HUD provides They are missing the fact that modern aircraft designed to be piloted by a crew of 2 have 2 of everything or should have 2 of everything including the primary flight instrumentation Dual HUDs provide safety in the operation of the aircraft and for the future both pilots will need to operate with the new EFVS and CVS technology to achieve the ultimate goal of zero zero anywhere Bottom line The whole company benefits from an aircraft equipped with dual HUDs FAA and EASA have agreed that a copilot monitor is required for landings where the viz is as low as 1000 ft RVR Dassault realized from the beginning that a dual HUD configuration was the best answer So knowing the system safety equation ends with a better rating with dual EFVS CVS HUDs the manufacturer put that configuration into play with FalconEye The logic is sound a single HUD means a single point of failure making it the weakest link in a tight low visibility approach For standard EFVS operations to 100 ft visual transition procedures the crew has to go around like they had lost required visual cues So when a single HUD failure occurs during authorized low visibility landings redundancy enables aircraft equipped with dual HUDs to mitigate such failure provided everything else is working and all the vital information is available in the 2nd HUD With dual HUDs both pilots are in the loop with the same information from energy management and flight guidance to the EFVS and CVS imagery FalconEye HUD symbology is also designed to provide all of the needed critical cues without legacy instrument 84 PROFESSIONAL PILOT May 2017 clutter that would mask the vision system The HUD is designed to be transparent and the experienced designers of Dassault have avoided the trap of replicating and presenting every object that can be seen on normal cockpit instruments The result is a clear uncluttered design The 1st CVS On October 11 2016 Dassault announced that its revolutionary combined vision system dubbed FalconEye has been certified by the European Aviation Safety Agency and the Federal Aviation Agency for use on the Falcon 2000S and LXS twinjet aircraft The system is described as the 1st HUD to blend SVS and sensor images into a single view to provide an unprecedented level of situational awareness to flightcrews in all conditions of operation day and night As noted by Dassault the purchase take rate is more than 90 for FalconEye You must really wonder what the remaining potential buyers are thinking In a recent announcement Dassault points to the future of FalconEye stating that The systems modular architecture will make it easy to add on future capabilities like improved EVS landings Historically speaking it should be noted that flightdeck innovation and leadership is not new to Dassault this leadership is part of their culture A company that has experience building both fighter aircraft and bizjets has always considered the HUD a central element of a cockpit For example the Dassault Mercure a 150 passenger aircraft from the 1970s came equipped with HUD as did the Falcon 2000 in 1993 for Cat III capability The EASy flightdeck with SVS became another standard for Dassault in the design for their corporate aircrafts Its in our very DNA to innovate in ways that bring added value to our customers says Dassault Aviation Chairman and CEO Eric Trappier With the advent of our CVS operators will benefit from a superior HUD design that affords vastly improved situational awareness and safety regardless of the time of day or weather conditions Whats next Dassaults FalconEye team formed by Program Director Eric Monsel Engineers Alain Boucher and Olivier Baudson and pioneering test pilots Philippe Rebourg and Arnaud Turpin along with many others has created a new flightdeck standard In the early stages of the CVS program Dassault had to contend with some reluctant regulators who at the time only considered the technical realities of sensors of that day but who are now looking forward to what is emerging So its been through persistence that this Dassault team has been able to navigate the process to achieve the 1st certification of a CVS for commercial aviation Their recent win of the Single European Sky Innovation and Technology Award for Augmented Approaches to Land in Europe is full recognition of the significance of Dassaults new capability This is now the benchmark in commercial aviation but is most likely only the beginning As one of the RTCA 213 OEM leaders Dassaults mainstay Falcon team leader Alain Boucher asserted that they are moving ahead in flightdeck technology on a global scale To borrow an old marketing phrase when Alain talks everyone listens At at recent RTCA 213 meeting it was noted by many that Alain said FalconEye is the 1st and theres more to come And he said it twice FalconEye configuration installed on the Falcon 900LX This system is equipped with 6 Elbit made external forward looking infrared and low light detectors fitted into 1 camera Glenn Connor is president of Discover Technology Intl He is a pilot and a researcher specializing in the development of enhanced vision systems and advanced avionics