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Part Four – Mike to Papa
We’re continuing our alphabetical journey through the diverse products and services that Honeywell Aerospace innovates and delivers to the aerospace industry. So far, we’ve covered Alpha to Delta, Echo to Hotel and Indigo to Lima. Today, we’re going to travel across the seven seas, explore the final frontier and look at some cockpit technologies that continue to help enhance aviation safety and efficiency.
M – Mission to Mars
Honeywell Aerospace is probably best known for the technologies we’ve invented, innovated, developed and produced for commercial air transport, business and general aviation and military platforms. However, some of our proudest moments – and technological success – have literally been out of this world.
From the earliest days of the Race to the Moon, to the successful Apollo 11 Moon Landing, the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station and the Hubble Telescope, Honeywell technology has been onboard every NASA program since the 1960s. Today, Honeywell is helping drive humankind into an emerging future beyond Earth, with innovative and reliable technologies that make deep space exploration and colonization a reality.
Honeywell is actively involved in the Mission to Mars. Our Miniature Inertial Measurement Unit (MIMU) product line is a radiation-hardened navigation system used for deep space products and missions. The MIMU was used to navigate the Mars 2020 spacecraft carrying the Perseverance rover down to the surface of Mars during the “seven minutes of terror”. The spacecraft relied heavily on our instruments to make it safely to the surface of Mars.
Working in collaboration with NASA and other partners, including Lockheed Martin, over the next decade, Honeywell will develop and produce essential systems for the Artemis and Orion projects that will take man (and women) to the Moon for the first time since 1972. These systems include guidance and navigation systems, command data handling, and display and control products. The focus of these missions is to validate these advanced technologies and learn lessons that will help take humans to Mars.
Our #FutureShapers are also helping to make the colonization of space a reality by developing life-support systems that remove CO2 from the air aboard spacecraft on long deep space missions. It’s all part of our work with NASA to help take mankind to the final frontier – and beyond.
N – Naval and Maritime
As well as spacecraft and the exploration of space, Honeywell is helping mankind safely navigate other uncharted waters, as well as more familiar channels – the world’s oceans.
From surface warships and submarines to large merchant ships, survey ships and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV), Honeywell has a full complement of highly-reliable, technically-advanced solutions for marine applications including ring laser gyro-based navigation products, condition-based maintenance, the latest actuation technologies and mechanical components. These mechanical components include advanced waterjet technology for marine propulsion to torpedo ejection pumps and firefighting systems for surface ships.
Navigating the high seas has come a long way since the time of sextants and star gazing. Honeywell’s TALIN Marine Inertial Navigation System (MINS), built with our industry-leading, high-accuracy ring laser gyro and accelerometers, offers a proven solution for a precise and reliable navigation system. Developed specifically for the unique requirements of the naval market, the TALIN MINS provides data on heading, pitch and roll, angular velocity and heave, combining the capabilities of an INS and an attitude heading and reference system (AHRS) in a single solution.
O – Onboard Maintenance Systems
Our Onboard Maintenance Systems (OMS) are helping airlines improve dispatch rates and aircraft reliability – and therefore customer satisfaction, by automating the management, transfer and analysis of core data.
Primarily a software-based solution that resides within Honeywell’s avionics systems, the OMS are designed to monitor the health of the aircraft and diagnose issues quickly and accurately. The OMS also include aircraft data-loading hardware, either wired or wireless, which provides a secure connection between ground systems and the aircraft avionics. These data loaders are used to load critical flight tools including navigation databases (charts and maps) and flight plans. They also download fault history database information from the aircraft’s central maintenance computer (CMC).
The OMS enable operators to reduce turnaround times by up to 50%. Additionally, the fault history database provides valuable information on the performance of core components and inflight systems, which enables original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to improve aircraft design, leading to more efficient aircraft and lower production costs.
P – Primus Epic
The flight deck has changed a lot over the last couple of decades. The cluttered cockpits, full of dials, gauges, switches and displays, have been replaced with large LCD touchscreens and intuitive user interfaces. Many of these changes are down to Honeywell’s ingenuity and a certain product line known as Primus Epic.
Primus Epic is the backbone of some of the world’s most advanced cockpits. From commercial airliners and business jets and helicopters, Primus Epic’s integrated cockpit increases safety, reduces pilot workload and continues to evolve to meet changing regulatory compliance and airspace requirements.
Our latest Primus Epic integrated cockpit for Gulfstream’s new G500 Symmetry flight deck is one of the most advanced in business aviation. It features integrated touchscreen controllers, our Next Generation Flight Management System (NGFMS), and other innovations from Honeywell including Honeywell’s SmartView Synthetic Vision. SmartView literally turns night into day, and stormy horizons into blue sky days, significantly improving the flight crew’s situational awareness by providing a large, 3-D color synthetic image of the outside world.
Aimed at making displays more intuitive, integrated and significantly more user-friendly for pilots, Honeywell’s new touch capabilities will naturally ease workload and improve communications in the cockpit. The integrated touch screens will be used for system controls, flight management, communication, checklists and monitoring weather and flight information. These latest innovations set new standards for safety, efficiency and situational awareness. They perform hundreds of tasks automatically so pilots can concentrate on their main job – flying the airplane.
Check out the next blog in this series. Part Five Quebec - Tango.
Want to know more about Honeywell Aerospace’s products or services? Feel free to leave a comment below for a potential future blog topic.
