Avionics computer from Boise-based Chelton Flight Systems advances small aircraft safety

An avionics company has developed a newly approved flight instrument that lets pilots see a picture of the ground through clouds and weather, potentially eliminating the kind of disorientation that may have led to the crash that killed John F. Kennedy Jr. five years ago.

By CHUCK OXLEY
Associated Press Writer MagicValley.com

Designed mainly for private and small commercial aircraft, the $50,000 base-price computer and display by Boise-based Chelton Flight Systems http://www.cheltonflightsystems.com/default.htm gives pilots a real-time simulated view of everything needed to fly the plane safely.

That’s important when the view out of the cockpit window turns oatmeal gray, the plane bounces blindly though turbulent air and it’s impossible to tell whether the plane is aimed up or down.

Even a quiet, overcast night sky in a remote area can be disorienting.

"Losing track of the airplane is what gets most pilots into trouble," said Gordon Pratt, Chelton Flight Systems President and co-developer of the computer.

John F. Kennedy Jr. took off in his single-engine airplane from Fairfield, N.J., at 8:38 p.m. on July 16, 1999. He intended to fly to Martha’s Vineyard to drop off his sister-in-law, then to fly on to Hyannis, Mass.

One hour and two minutes into the flight, the airplane went into a dive, slipped beneath radar coverage and crashed into the sea about 7 1/2 miles off the coast.
photo
AP photo
Gordon Pratt, Chelton Flight Systems president and co-developer, flies one his company’s twin engine planes near Stanley, Idaho Friday, Nov. 8, 2003. Pratt’s company is marketing a newly approved flight instrument (the bright colored screens in photo) that allows pilots a real-time simulated view of everything needed to fly the aircraft.

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Chelton Flight Systems

1109 Main Street #560

Boise, ID 83702

Business Hours:
8 am to 6 pm Mountain
Monday – Friday

Phone:
208-389-9959

Fax:
208-389-9961

Sales e-mail:
[email protected]

Support e-mail:
[email protected]

http://www.cheltonflightsystems.com/default.htm

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Veteran pilots and flight instructors speculate that that Kennedy, who only had his pilots license for a year before the crash, may have become disoriented flying in the dark and the haze over the ocean.

"He trusted the seat of his pants instead of what his instruments were telling him," Pratt said. "Always trust your instruments."

Pilots are taught in flight school that disorientation comes from the body’s internal gyroscope, which can easily be fooled when there is no stable horizon to grasp.

The gravitational forces that create false feelings of motion in an aircraft can belie the plane’s actual movement. What may feel like a gentle, climbing left turn can actually be a steep right-hand dive.

Instructors often show this phenomenon to student pilots by having them close their eyes while the aircraft is flying straight and level. Then the instructor gently maneuvers the aircraft into a steep angle. When the students open their eyes, the earth appears shockingly different than they expected.

How it works

The evolution of cockpit instrumentation has presented pilots with an increasingly complicated array of dials and gauges. Instrument-rated pilots are trained to assemble the pieces of data into a whole mental picture of what’s happening to the aircraft.

The Chelton FlightLogic system processes all the aircraft’s flight information along with pre-loaded data about the nearby terrain and pinpoint positioning data from GPS satellites.

The system melds it all into one intuitive picture of everything and displays it on a video display screens about the size of paperback novel.

"The biggest advantage is everything is in on one display. Normally its six, and you’re comparing them all in your head — it takes a lot more time and brain processing. With Chelton, it’s a three-dimensional quick glance," said Chad Menne, a 29-year-old corporate pilot and instructor who lives in Minneapolis.

A mid-range, $75,000 avionics package actually comes with two screens to create what the company calls "synthetic vision." The one on the left of the instrument panel shows a forward-looking, 70-degree view of the horizon and the terrain ahead, along with the aircraft’s compass heading, speed and altitude. People see about 45 degrees, so it nearly doubles a pilot’s natural view.

The left screen is also used for navigation. The pilot can select a destination, such as an airport, and the display will show a series of artificial green boxes, each representing a 400-foot-wide target in the sky.

The boxes line up to form a tunnel in the sky toward the destination airport. Just aim the plane through the boxes and you’ll have the runway under your landing gear. Or, if you prefer, the interfaced autopilot can do it for you, including complicated instrument landing approaches.

The right-hand screen is a top-down view of the aircraft’s location on a moving map, showing your exact location, along with any nearby air traffic or airports. Even tall obstructions, such as radio towers, are clearly mapped out.

The FlightLogic computer comes with redundant circuitry to prevent failure, Pratt said. The computers run on Pentium-class microchips and constantly self-test. A standby battery system can be added as an option in case of power failure.

The system enjoyed a fast-track approval with the Federal Aviation Administration’s Capstone project in southeastern Alaska.

In 2002, the Federal Aviation Administration authorized a $4.9 million contract with the company. The government bought more than 150 units and installed them in small commercial aircraft.

As a result, the crash rate in the test area, which had been abnormally high in that part of the country, has dropped significantly, Capstone spokeswoman Joette Storm said.

The precise navigational system that is a part of the computer has even allowed the FAA to open up new airspace because pilots can fly routes over mountain ranges that had previously been prohibited, Storm said.

Evolution of an idea

Pratt and a friend, Rick Price, a former Navy test pilot, started developing the system together in 1996.

"I was building an airplane of my own and I was looking at an instrument panel that was designed in the 1940s," said the 38-year-old Pratt, who has been flying 15 years.

Pratt and Price, who lives in Houston, formed Sierra Flight Systems, which Price writing most of the computer code in his spare time while he finished up law school.

As development continued, Pratt said, they found the ground terrain display, which is modeled on United State Geographical Service maps, was actually too realistic.

"The FAA was afraid people would just fly by this. We actually had to dumb-down the detail," Pratt said.

Sierra later merged with Chelton Group and became Chelton Flight Systems. The company sold its first experimental unit in 1999 and the system was approved for general sales and installation this past March.

To date, Pratt said, the company has sold about 750 systems. The business has generated jobs for 25 sales, administrative, and engineering workers in Boise.

The hardware manufacturing is done in Prescott, Ariz. Once the motherboard is assembled, it takes only a half-hour to load all the computer software.

Pratt said the system is not meant to be installed in all the 188,000 actively flown planes in the United States. He’s aiming for the 20,000 to 25,000 small plane owners; the doctors, lawyers and business owners who fly occasionally but whose skills could benefit from flight computer.

But even as a professional, Menne — the Minnesota pilot — persuaded his company to install the system soon after it received FAA approval. With nine years of experience as a pilot, he has no trouble understanding his aircraft’s mechanical instruments. He just likes the Chelton system better.

"It looks almost like a video game," he said. "It’s way different from what aviation has been for the last hundred years."

Copyright © 2003, Lee Publications Inc.

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