Synthetic Vision, 3D moving Map & combined Flight Director

Flying the rugged terrain and shorelines of Alaska beneath a low ceiling and and flying through legal but limited visibility are two entirely different things. They both involve pucker factor. Terrain that you know like the palm of your hand, to use a military training phrase, takes on a whole different look in the presence of either one of these complications. Decisions become fast and low down often critical. A wrong turn up a gorge that looks right can be a fatal error.

Moving maps were a great advance. Even so most experienced pilots insisted on the finger on Sectional Map routine. The GPS carries the risk of over confidence and casual entry into dangerous terrain. The low ceiling crowds out the usual reference points and leaves one walking with their eyes on the ground. The obscured visibility of snow, dust, rain or smoke allows a clear view of the ground or water below and with smoke or dust the sky above but a vague or non existent horizon.

As I have watched the newer multifunction displays light up the cockpits of newer and upgraded aircraft, I have said that soon a true 3D moving image on the primary attitude and navigation instrument would replace all these graphic displays with reliable synthetic vision. As I look through my April "Aviation Maintenance Technology," ah ha, Universal Avionics has done it. I expected terrain to be based on satellite imagery but their Vision I instrument paints the terrain with a grid and colors of the familiar sectional map.

This pictorial navigation instrument, if you will, carries the now familiar flat screen presentation of the "T" shaped instrument scan of air speed to the left, attitude and flight director center, heading above, altitude to the right, compass below and VSI lower right corner. I like this particular instrument too because it includes the needle and ball below. Superimposed behind the bright navigation display the 3D landscape spreads out before you with the shades and subtlety of a Van Gogh brightly reflecting the true perspective of your altitude.

I believe this form of 3D vision will be the greatest safety advance possible for Alaska. The accident reports time and time again describe controlled flight into terrain and continued flight VFR into IFR conditions, and of course, at these low altitudes, there is no IFR. Togather with weather and collision avoidance on the other displays of the new glass cockpit this one will save lives. (So long as the lodge pilots do not use it to push on --- "down to the grass. ")