Rockwell Collins said this week that it will bring synthetic-vision capability to its Pro Line 21 avionics suite next year, an announcement that was sure to be warmly embraced by OEM customers as well as the pilots who fly with the popular bizav cockpit. The SVS upgrade will be offered for both forward-fit and retrofit, the company said. Pricing information was not released. More than 4,000 airplanes are currently equipped with Pro Line 21, and Rockwell Collins continues to deliver the systems in about 300 new airplanes each year. To be eligible for the retrofit, an airplane must include the Ethernet-enabled version of the Pro Line displays, which is also a requirement for viewing electronics charts and satellite downlink weather.
Rockwell Collins also became the first avionics maker to incorporate SVS on a head-up display. In a joint program with Bombardier, Collins recently conducted a series of flight tests that sought to validate using HUD-based synthetic vision as a way to achieve operational credit for lower landing minimums during Special Authorization (SA) CAT I ILS and WAAS LPV (Wide Area Augmentation System Localizer Performance with Vertical guidance) approaches.
