Six Ways Honeywell Technology Is Improving Aviation Safety

Honeywell solutions are on nearly every aircraft in flight today and are used at more than 500 airports around the globe. Today, our core technologies and data-driven solutions are paving the way for safer, smarter skies through reliability and prevention and prediction of issues. Here are a few examples of how our technology is improving aviation safety.

Identifying Wake Turbulence. As airports become more crowded, the disturbance large aircraft create is becoming more of an issue. Our Surface Indications and Alert System (SURF IA) is the first system to visually show pilots if their aircraft will come into contact with dangerous wake turbulence from other aircraft.

Building Smarter Sensors. When pilots receive a system warning, how do they know if something is really wrong or if the sensors are simply malfunctioning? Our Integral Health Monitoring (IHM) Series proximity sensors are self-diagnosing and can detect whether a sensor reading is correct or the result of a problem with the sensor itself.

Boosting Pilot Visibility. Visibility can be impacted by many factors, among them atmospheric conditions like fog or sun glare. Reduced visibility is a major hazard, particularly during approach. SmartView synthetic vision synthesizes flight information from multiple onboard databases, GPS and inertial reference systems into a complete, easy-to-understand 3-D rendering of the forward terrain to provide pilots with a view they would likely see on a clear day.

Ensuring that Crash Data Survives. Aviation’s worst accidents can provide valuable learning opportunities—if flight data can be recovered. Honeywell’s cockpit voice recorders (CVRs) and flight data recorders (FDRs) are capable of withstanding great impact and pressure to contribute to making future air travel safer. They use a modular crash-survivable memory unit (CSMU) to protect the solid-state voice recording memory and are compliant with the FAA mandates for data link recording. We’re also working with Curtiss-Wright to use real-time connectivity to reinvent the way CVRs and FDRs work and to allow for constant access to the data they collect.

Creating Holistic Awareness. Staying alert to the dangers posed by weather, terrain and other aircraft can be challenging for modern pilots. Keeping all this in front of pilots without overwhelming them is a large challenge for the industry, with some in aviation already worrying about the complexity of modern cockpits. Honeywell Aircraft Environmental Surveillance System (AESS) combines our weather, terrain and traffic awareness solutions to create holistic understanding of the environment and improve flight safety.

Planning for a Safer Future. Urban Air Mobility is the movement to bring on-demand flight—including unmanned aerial vehicles—to cities. Doing so will require expertise in the kind of autonomous flight rarely seen outside of space exploration. For the last 60 years, Honeywell has been part of every NASA manned space mission and is aboard 950 satellites and counting. We’re combining that knowledge of spacecraft experience with 100 years of technology expertise to develop Urban Air Mobility solutions.

From the start of aviation to the 1970s—when we introduced ground proximity warning systems—to our leading role in Connected Aircraft solutions today, Honeywell technologies have been a central part of aviation safety. We’re proud of our role in keeping the skies safe and are continuing to innovate to make the world of aviation safer for all.