Big Benefits Come in Honeywell Apps

Honeywell has turned loose its software developers and tasked them with speeding up delivery of useful mobile apps to the aviation community. Part of Honeywell’s GoDirect one-step services shop, this effort enables Honeywell (Booth 2200) to deliver safety innovations much faster, because these apps don’t require certification. Updating the apps can also go much faster, because no regulatory approval is required.

One of the first GoDirect products is the Flight Preview app, which allows pilots to “fly” an instrument approach depicted on the Apple iPad to help them become familiar with the procedure and the runway environment before flying the actual approach. Another app is the Weather Information Service app, which went live earlier this year. The Fuel Efficiency app, which was developed with technology the company gained through its acquisition last year of Bulgarian company Aviaso, helps airlines track fuel tankering, potable water loads, flaps use, etc., to see how the flight could be flown more efficiently. For maintenance operations, the MyMaintainer app taps into data from the aircraft and tracks crew-alerting-system messages. The app can point to the origin of the fault, track the history of similar faults and send messages to a central office for corrective action.

Flight Preview: The app was developed by Honeywell’s flight management system (FMS) engineering team. “It has the same FMS logic in our FMS products applied in this application,” said Kiah Erlich, general manager of Honeywell's Flight Support Services business.

Flight Preview allows pilots to select an airport and any of its available instrument procedures, choose the transition, then preview the entire approach, including, if desired, the missed approach procedure. Previewing the approach means viewing a simulated fly-through on two panes on the iPad. The left pane shows a 2-D Google Maps-based “movie” of the approach, and the right side shows the approach plate. “Push ‘play’ and you’re watching a movie about that approach,” Erlich said, “with terrain, the street view, minimums, each transition and the missed approach.” When “flying” a previewed approach, the user can speed up or slow down the action.

Honeywell sees the Flight Preview app as a tool for instrument students as well as experienced pilots. “We’re working with a couple of airlines on getting Flight Preview into their ops specs to count toward their airport training,” she said. Pilots might want to preview approaches while planning a flight, or the app can also run as a standalone without Internet access, allowing pilots to use the app as a briefing tool to preview an approach during low-workload phases of flight, or when given a reroute with a different approach procedure.

Weather Information Service: This app is designed to help pilots assess weather conditions during preflight and while in flight. Users can input a flight plan, including waypoints, and view the current and forecast weather over the route. Various weather imagery can be displayed, including radar, cumulonimbus tops, winds, clear air turbulence, icing and Sigmets. A vertical situation display (VSD) shows a profile view of the forecast conditions based on the selected cruise altitude. For example, a purple area depicted on the weather map shows widespread clear air turbulence, but viewing the same condition on the VSD shows the location and altitude of medium and high forecast conditions along on the planned route.

A forecast slider button allows the user to project ahead up to 24 hours to see how conditions are expected to change. Another slider moves the weather observation backward by as much as three hours. Touching images on the map pulls up specifics about the current and forecast weather conditions, airport weather, Pireps, Sigmets, etc.

Weather is available worldwide on the Weather Information Service app. The user can set the auto update time and forecast and look-back periods as desired, to prevent too much data use when flying with the app and tapping into the aircraft’s air-to-ground or satcom service. Or updates can be requested manually by turning off the auto-update feature.

A super-handy feature in the app is Digital-ATIS, which eliminates the need to dial up a frequency to listen to the ATIS information, if on-board connectivity is available, or to pull up the D-ATIS from the FMS. Not all airports offer D-ATIS, but it is available at most major airports.

Weather Information Service is available on the iPad and also on Microsoft Windows and Surface 3 tablets.