Runway success

Frontiers December 2016 Issue

Project runway Engineers ‘land it’ with software that helps increase pilot situational awareness during approaches BY ERIC FETTERS-WALP modern jetliner like the 737 is full of technology that aids takeoffs and landings, even in less-than-ideal weather conditions. For pilots, situational awareness in lower-visibility environments is essential—especially during these two critical phases of flight, where factors such as low clouds or fog can obscure runway views, eroding safety 12 | BOEING FRONTIERS margins and resulting in delays for passengers, airlines and airports alike. Help in seeing the runway is what Boeing’s Perspective Runway provides. The recently developed software is part of a vision shared by Steven Fleiger-Holmes, a Flight Crew Operations Integration engineer who helped invent it. “Regardless of weather or lighting conditions, the pilot sees ‘virtual runway’ features that are aligned to the actual runway,” Fleiger-Holmes said. Used in conjunction with the instrument landing system approach guidance that pilots already rely on, the system supplements a pilot’s situational awareness of the runway environment with real-time visual data. Patented two years ago, Perspective Runway uses the aircraft’s head-up A


Frontiers December 2016 Issue
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