Honeywell Briefs Offshore Operators on HTAWS Upgrade

Honeywell’s latest upgrade to the Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS) for helicopters took center stage at the HeliOffshore Conference and Annual General Meeting in Baveno, Italy, May 5-6.

The Helicopter Terrain Advanced Warning System (HTAWS) upgrade gives helicopter pilots additional tools to avoid obstacles and enhance safety during approaches and takeoffs. The feature is seen as being particularly valuable to pilots landing and taking off from offshore oil rigs, according to Colin Dorsett, Vice President of Sales for Honeywell’s helicopter business in Europe.

“The enhancement to the Mark XXII EGPWS will give pilots flying offshore missions unprecedented awareness of potential hazards and provide visual and aural alerts to check their airspeed during takeoff and approach,” he said. “The meeting was a great opportunity for us to reach out to operators and tell them about this improvement to our proven Mark XXII system.”

The Mark XXII system is specifically designed to meet the unique needs of helicopter operators. The EGPWS database includes location data on terrain, airports, heliports, obstacles and oil rigs and gives pilots a clear advantage in avoiding controlled flight into terrain and other obstacles. EGPWS is one component in a Honeywell safety suite of products including terrain awareness, flight data monitoring, traffic collision avoidance and weather radar systems that support the Helicopter Air Ambulance & ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) Out mandate, Health and Usage Monitoring Systems (HUMS), data recording for Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) and flight tracking.

At the meeting, Honeywell senior Fellow Yasuo Ishihara outlined benefits of the Honeywell system to more than 200 operators and other members of HeliOffshore, the offshore oil and gas industry’s global flight safety association. Attendees were also briefed on the association’s efforts to require HTAWS capabilities on all helicopters flying offshore missions.

As a leader in helicopter safety technologies, Honeywell has made a major investment in HTAWS, which will be available soon to offshore operators and aircraft manufacturers.

“We share HeliOffshore’s commitment to advancing the cause of helicopter safety,” Dorsett said. “The association has done a great job of promoting safety among its members and we have reached out many times to HeliOffshore members for feedback on Honeywell products, both in the field and under development.”

Learn more about Honeywell Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning system technology.