CAA: GA News, "EGPWS: High-Tech 'Awareness' for GA Aircraft"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@cwnet.com>]

Friday, March 3, 2000

EGPWS: HIGH-TECH ‘AWARENESS’ FOR GA AIRCRAFT
GA News


Missile defense technology that helps keep commercial airliners safe is now
available to general aviation pilots.

Honeywell’s Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System was demonstrated in
Anchorage last month. The EGPWS device is a pilot situational awareness
instrument that can trigger flashing lights on the instrument panel and has
an audio alert for the pilot. If you have a multifunction display screen
installed in your aircraft, the unit even has color-coded terrain
identification based on the aircraft’s altitude above the ground and
surrounding terrain.

“This is not a navigational aid; this is to keep the big iron from hitting
the big mountain,” said Markus Johnson, chief pilot of flight test
operations for Honeywell. This version of the EGPWS is modified for general
aviation in hopes that Alaska pilots and smaller Part 135 air carriers will
accept the expense of the technology as a trade-off for loss of lives in
“controlled flight into terrain” (CFIT) accidents.

According to officials at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and
Health’s Alaska Station, controlled flight into terrain is responsible for
17% of Alaska’s aircraft crashes. According to the National Transportation
Safety Board, during the first quarter of 1999 there were 25 general
aviation accidents resulting in 47 related deaths as a result of controlled
flight into terrain. On average, one of these crashes happens every 3.6 days
nationwide.

EGPWS displays terrain above the aircraft and below with color coding. Red
is any terrain 2,000 feet or over, bright yellow identifies everything 1,000
feet above, and shaded yellow identifies everything from 999 feet above to
500 feet below. A dark green is shown for terrain 500 to 1,000 feet below
the aircraft, and a lighter shade of green is for terrain 1,000 to 2,000
feet below the plane. Any ground below 2,000 feet is shown as black. Bodies
of water are cyan, sort of a purplish-red.

Green is synonymous with “good” or “safe,” Honeywell officials note; thus
the decision to use it as the main body of color for pilots.

The system offers auditory as well as visual cues of impending terrain. If
you’re flying into a mountain, one minute away from the terrain, with an
obstacle as much as 800 feet below the aircraft and 2,000 feet above, a
forward-looking sensor will trigger an audio alarm that blurts, “Caution,
terrain; caution, terrain” until the aircraft turns, climbs or does whatever
it takes to avoid the ascending obstacle.

Should the pilot not heed the first warning, a second sounds within one
minute, or when the plane is less than 400 feet above the terrain. Thirty
seconds before impact, the pilot hears, “Terrain ahead. Pull up! Terrain
ahead. Pull up!”

Unlike previous GPWS, the new system shuts itself off once corrective action
has been taken and the plane is out of danger.

Earlier models of the EGPWS were dubbed “screamers” by airline pilots who
sometimes disengaged the warning system altogether, forgetting to reengage
for the continuing duration of a flight.

The technology is based on military and commercial airline research and
development by AlliedSignal Inc., now part of Honeywell. The EGPWS warning
system is based on a data base of Global Position System terrain data
purchased from foreign governments and U.S. sources. It uses geometric
altitude, comparing it to an aircraft’s current GPS location with the EGPWS
database.

The EGPWS indicates obstacles above 100 feet above ground level, and lists
all runways 2,000 feet and longer for most of the world. The North and South
American terrain data fits on a small chip disk that measures a little
larger than a quarter. The hardware box that accepts the chip card for the
EGPWS measures 2 by 4 by 6 inches and weighs 1.5 pounds. The data processed
in quarter-mile increments has a forward-looking capability of 320 nautical
miles, in 5-, 10-, 20-, 40-, 80-, 160- and 320-nautical-mile selections.

“This is great because you can look ahead by switching the distance. I can
see that if I climb over this mountain, there is something even bigger
behind it,” said Todd Curtis, a marketing and business development manager
for GPWS and Enhanced Products at Honeywell’s Aerospace Electronic Systems.

The general aviation or Class B EGPWS sells for $9,250, and most
multifunction display screens cost around $5,000, with antenna and
installation estimated at another $1500.

Why should carriers spend this kind of money? It may keep them ahead of the
FAA. Next month a pending FAA ruling (unless there is a waiver filed) will
mandate that carriers with turboprop aircraft carrying between six and nine
passengers must install the EGPWS. Currently all Part 121 scheduled carriers
are now required to have the Class A EGPWS (at a cost of $60,000), based on
an FAA mandate in 1998.

The EGPWS should work hand in hand with the FAA’s Capstone Project, which
interfaces with UPS Aviation technology.

“This would offer a warning system not included in the Capstone equipment,”
said August Asay, an FAA pilot currently testing the Capstone equipment in
flight.

“Our hope is that this will help the industry as a whole here in Alaska, and
that the insurance carriers will acknowledge aircraft owners and commercial
operators who have the warning device installed,” said Curtis, “not to
mention the lifesaving capabilities.”

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