Alaska and Capstone

That was a long one. I got to stay away from the rants. There is little we can do except to act locally. This is a dreary North Pacific morning. It rains from low lying gray clouds onto steel colored ocean, and the wind blows, not so cold. I’m taking my book, once more, to the editor with fingers crossed. I’m glad I’ve redone it.

The weather is IFR. The CAPSTONE program produced some nice graphic displays that seem to trickle into commercial production. The new Garmin hand held almost does it all. What is CAPSTONE? Well, the multifunction display, a big one, shows the expected navigational information plus: lightning strikes, superimposed NEXRAD from satellite, current weather, position of other aircraft with transponders, and terrain separation graphics. It also connects you to Center by satellite and shares the information.

This is the morning for that kind of data. With a front coming in, I would not fly today anyway, but this is the time of year for snotty weather. Marginal icing if higher, gusty winds and wind shear, it would be nice to see where you are going or just to know that you will be able to see where you are going if things get really wet.

Chilton, to that end, displays a 3D graphic on their attitude graphic that yields a virtual position awareness. Wouldn’t it be nice to have digital graphics with sufficient memory to display vivid life like imaging in 3D? Not much use to the high altitude jet but to the low and slow of the aviation world, one could more safely pick your way up and around the estuaries and fjords of the Alaskan Coast. Here’s to moving virtual 3D imaging.