On this episode of Aerospace Unplugged, we're going to talk to the editor-in-chief of Aviation Consumer magazine, Larry Anglisano and the product line director for Honeywell Anthem, Jason Bialek. Larry has worked as an avionics technician and a test flight pilot and writes for several top aviation publications. He's going to tell us his views on the new Honeywell Anthem integrated flight deck. Jason has put in a lot of time working on the development of this integrated cockpit system over the past few years and especially over the past few months as this has gone out into the world.
On this episode of Aerospace Unplugged, we're going to talk to the editor-in-chief of Aviation Consumer magazine, Larry Anglisano and the product line director for Honeywell Anthem, Jason Bialek. Larry has worked as an avionics technician and a test flight pilot and writes for several top aviation publications. He's going to tell us his views on the new Honeywell Anthem integrated flight deck. Jason has put in a lot of time working on the development of this integrated cockpit system over the past few years and especially over the past few months as this has gone out into the world.
Adam Kress:
Hello, and thanks for joining me for the Aerospace Unplugged podcast brought to you by Honeywell Aerospace. I'm your host, Adam Kress, and this is your behind the scenes look into all things aerospace. On this episode of Aerospace Unplugged, we're going to talk to the editor-in-chief of Aviation Consumer magazine, Larry Anglisano. Larry has worked as an avionics technician and a test flight pilot and writes for several top aviation publications. He's going to tell us a bit about his background and give us his views on the new Honeywell Anthem integrated flight deck. So let's get right to it and hear what Larry has to say. Larry, thank you so much for joining us today.
Larry Anglisano:
Well, thanks for having me, Adam. It's kind of weird. Usually, I'm on the other side of the microphone and the camera, and now I'm joining the other side, but I appreciate you having me on.
Adam Kress:
No, no, I appreciate it, too. I'm a reformed reporter, so I'm going back to my old days now. I get to ask the questions, but I appreciate it. Let's get down to it here. Tell me a little bit about your background, and a question I love to ask people is how did you first fall in love with aviation?
Larry Anglisano:
Well, I was a pretty young kid and was smitten by aviation at a young age. When I was a kid, we used to take vacations to Florida and would sit on an Eastern Air Lines 727. I remember it was whisper jet service from Newark, New Jersey down to Fort Lauderdale in a record amount of time. Ever since my first airplane ride on an airliner, I knew I wanted to fly, and I held onto that aspiration and went to college, got a couple degrees in aviation, and it all took off from there. I started flying when I was, well, younger than 15 and then soloed when I was able to solo and worked through my ratings from there. So it all started when I was a young kid.
Adam Kress:
Wow. That's excellent. Tell me about then how your career was launched. I know you were a test pilot for a while and then have moved into aviation journalism. So summarize for our listeners the journey you've had.
Larry Anglisano:
Well, I started out of college as an avionics tech. I was a green avionics technician back... It must have been late '80s, '89, '90 timeframe. I always liked electronics, and I was intrigued by aircraft electronics, so I joined up with a small avionics shop and started my career there. Some of my early projects were in the experimental market. I remember designing, laying out panels for a fleet of Lancair IV airplanes that a guy was building, and that's where I started. At the time, LORAN-C was the big avionics kick, and then it slowly emerged into GPS. So, yeah, started out basically designing instrument panels and layout and then did some test flying from there and then progressed through a couple different shops and ended up as a avionics tech.
Adam Kress:
Okay. So when you were a test pilot then, what kind of things were you testing? Take me through some of the experiences you had there.
Larry Anglisano:
Well, it was a bunch of different things. It was post-installation flight testing, lots of field approvals that required testing. Towards the latter part of my avionics career, I was doing a lot of post-installation fly-offs with the owners. They would come pick up the airplane after it was down for an avionics install, and I would do the shakedown flights and put the new avionics through the paces. Ended up doing a lot of flying with a lot of interesting people and a lot of interesting airplanes.
Adam Kress:
Well, it sounds like, to some extent, when it comes to avionics, you've probably maybe not seen it all but seen a heck of a lot. That leads us to Honeywell Anthem, the new integrated flight deck that just debuted just a couple months ago in October, and I know you had a chance to get a demonstration at N. So what were your initial impressions of these all new avionics?
Larry Anglisano:
I did. It was NBAA in Las Vegas, I guess, a couple months ago at this point. I was helping a colleague, Kate O'Connor, do the filming for the demo the first time I had seen the system, and I didn't quite know what to expect. But I was pretty impressed because it was boldly different than anything I've seen. I was pretty impressed from the time I first laid my eyes on it, quite frankly.
Adam Kress:
What was it about it that was different or better to you?
Larry Anglisano:
Well, the first thing that came to mind was how big the displays were and the fact that they were bezel-less displays. For those of you who haven't seen it, these are large displays without bezels. What I found interesting was a modern automotive approach to avionics design. If you look inside some of the latest and greatest automobiles, particularly stuff by Tesla, you'll see these big bezel-less screens, and taking that automotive approach to an avionics standpoint was pretty intriguing to me. It was pretty easy on the eyes.
Adam Kress:
From a pilot's perspective then, I know Anthem is designed for everything from GA to new UAM type vehicles that'll be flying in the next few years to business jets and then eventually to airliners. So how do you think those touch screens and those bezel-less features will be welcomed or accepted by different types of pilots based on the aircraft?
Larry Anglisano:
Well, I think the main focus these days is going to be on safety, especially when you start talking about single pilot operation in a complex airplane. We've already got emergency auto-land from Garmin. We've got some other high-level high amounts of automation in Anthem from what I've seen in the demo, and some of that includes protection for runway overrun and just an increased sense of situational awareness by what you're seeing on those big screens. So it's a double-edged sword. A lot of automation can also mean a lot of pilot overload. So I think the feature set has got to be easy to use. It's got to be intuitive, and there has to be, what I say, several ways to skin a cat. There has to be multiple ways of getting the system to do what you want it to do without getting hung up in a deep menu structure. That's one of the things that impressed me in the demo that I saw on the Anthem system.
Adam Kress:
Okay. Excellent. So let's talk about Anthem's potential, specifically in the GA market. I know that's been one over the past decade or two that's been primarily dominated by Garmin, but how might this change things?
Larry Anglisano:
Well, it has. There's no secret that Garmin has dominated at the market, both in a forward fit and retrofit, both as an OEM standard and in the field as retrofit. I think Honeywell's got some work to do to change that. I think that the typical buyer... Whether it's a new aircraft when you're spending over a million dollars for a single engine piston or you're spending $50,000 to retrofit your old '70s vintage Cessna, pilots want options, and I think the market... Listen, competition is good, and I think buyers want more options when it comes to avionics. We've seen some more competition in the retrofit world with other manufacturers, and I think if Honeywell can scale the Anthem down to the retrofit level, I think it'll be welcome.
Adam Kress:
You said competition is good a minute or two ago. Let's dive into that a little bit more. Why do you think there hasn't been more competition, particularly in the GA marketplace, and do you think we'll see an increasing level of it?
Larry Anglisano:
Well, I hope we do. I like to see competition, and I like to see choices. I mean, hey, none of us want to drive the same car. We like choices. In my world, I like to choose different cars with different electronics, and I think the typical general aviation buyer isn't much different. Why haven't we seen competition? Well, I think a lot of that has to do with the certification process. Notoriously, it's been difficult and expensive to earn TSO and STC approval for avionics. It got easy for a while, but then it seemed to get sort of difficult again, and I'm not sure where we're going to end up as we get into a new year. But that's probably one reason why we haven't seen a lot of competition. Garmin has had some pretty good momentum going, and they've got a lot of engineering experience, and they've got a lot of experience earning certification for a lot of different types of airplanes. It's been a momentum that's almost been unstoppable. So I think that's one reason why we haven't seen the level of competition that we probably ought to see that we haven't.
Adam Kress:
Okay. If we think about the future of air travel on one hand from a commercial standpoint, I know that there's always a projection of, "We're not going to have enough pilots. We're going to need more pilots." At the same time, on the other side, you have these concept vehicles, again, urban air mobility, that may end up pilotless a little bit further down the line. But if you harken back maybe to when you were learning to fly and the avionics you were using then compared to what you see in Anthem now, I know Honeywell really wanted to design for that next generation of pilots. You talked about all the touch screens and things like that. Do you think that this sort of technology we see in Anthem is going to make it easier for more folks to learn how to fly, and do you think more will?
Larry Anglisano:
Well, I think it'll be more intriguing or at least an incentive to learn how to fly because put yourself in a position of the typical wannabe pilot that has the means to learn how to fly. Chances are they drive the latest and greatest car, vehicle, and they're used to a world of electronics, and then they get into an old trainer or even something that's been upgraded, and, yeah, it may have some modern equipment in it, but chances are it's not going to be ultra-modern, at least not in a trainer or for starters. So I think a cockpit that resembles an automotive-inspired design could be intriguing for somebody that's interested in flying, and that may seal the deal. Who knows?
Adam Kress:
Okay. All right, Larry, I have one more question for you, a little bit out of left field here, but we call the podcast Aerospace Unplugged, and when you're not flying and when you are unplugged, what do you do?
Larry Anglisano:
Well, I do unplug. I'm a distance cyclist. I'm a bicyclist. I like to ride my motorcycles. But something that I love as much as flying airplanes is music. I'm a musician, and I'm a guitarist, and I've been in the process with some other very talented musicians of doing some recordings that are aviation-based. Our goal is to create a series of aviation-themed smooth jazz pieces that people can put on when they fly their airplanes. Most of the more memorable flights that I've had over the years have been while I was listening to music. That holds true to today. I'll go flying, and I'll come back, and I'll pick up my guitar, and I'll create something that made me remember of the flight I just took, or even when I'm not flying, I'll look outside, I'll look at the sky, and I'll do some messing around on my guitar. But, yeah, music is really important to me. It's as important as flying is. So when I'm unplugged, I plug in my guitar.
Adam Kress:
[crosstalk 00:13:22]-
Larry Anglisano:
Thank you for the shameless plug.
Adam Kress:
Yes. Yeah. Everything is plugged here. No, that's very cool and a really neat way to merge your two passions. We're going to have to get you up playing music in the airplane. That's the next step. But don't fly and play at the same time.
Larry Anglisano:
Well, maybe, but... Yeah, so it should be interesting. It's pretty aviation geeky. Some of the titles that we've come up with already on some of the tracks that we've cut are all aviation-based, like On Top or Fast Taxi or Crosswind, so it should appeal to the aviation geek, we hope. Maybe by the time I'm retired, I'll actually have something put together.
Adam Kress:
Well, there you go. When it tops the charts, we'll have you back on the podcast, and we can talk about that.
Larry Anglisano:
I'll hold you to that, Adam.
Adam Kress:
All right. Will do. Will do, Larry. Thank you again so much for joining us today. I appreciate it. It was really cool to learn about your career, your background, and also dig into Anthem a little bit deeper.
Adam Kress:
Okay. Up next to talk about Honeywell Anthem is the man who's probably closest to it than anybody else. Next on is Jason Bialek. He's the product line director for Honeywell Anthem, has put in a lot of time working on the development of this integrated cockpit system over the past few years and especially over the past few months as this has gone out into the world. So thanks a lot, Jason, for joining us today. Appreciate it.
Jason Bialek:
Thank you.
Adam Kress:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). So handful of questions for you here, again, as someone who is spending his every day with this technology. Tell us just in summary why pilots are so excited about Honeywell Anthem.
Jason Bialek:
Well, first off, they are seeing a lot of innovation, so we're doing, because we can, 50% lighter system, a lot more processing. We're able to bring in a lot of safety features, advanced features that we weren't able to bring into general aviation and other lighter vehicle type market segments before. We're also always-on, cloud-connected, so there's an unprecedented amount of information that you'd be able to access through unbelievably sharp 2K displays, larger displays with bezel-less, just a ton of different things to be excited about.
Adam Kress:
Okay. So if you're a pilot listening to this podcast today, take me through the two or three biggest things that explain why Anthem is different than what's in today's cockpits.
Jason Bialek:
Well, I guess I'll start with the always-on, cloud-connected. So that doesn't mean that you're running critical avionics systems from the Internet. That's a common misconception. What it means is, a lot like we're used to on our consumer devices, things are saved somewhere where you can easily access them. So, as an example, when you're preparing for your preflight, you can access remotely the information on the airplane, oil pressure, fuel levels, sorry, oil levels, fuel levels, tire pressure, that sort of thing.
Jason Bialek:
More importantly, you can save windows layouts, you can configure your cockpit for preflight, basically doing just about everything outside of the physical walk around on the airplane ahead of time when you're in a bit different mindset. It's a little bit more calm when you're away from the airplane before you got to the airport. You're not having passengers or friends and family interrupt you as you're trying to get ready to go fly, so you can think through it a little bit more calmly and in an organized way.
Jason Bialek:
So when you get to the flight deck, without an iPad, without having to bring an iPad up to the airplane, you can recover, the flight plan that you saved and power up the avionics with everything basically ready to go. So it's really a different way of preparing ahead of time for your flights. What that allows us to do is focus on what's changed since you got your pre-flight briefing. Instead of trying to get all that done in the cockpit, instead, now you're a lot more aware of, "Okay, I got my briefing an hour ago, here's what's changed," and that allows you to be safer as a pilot.
Adam Kress:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). There's a behavioral change, a little bit, that I guess Anthem is allowing to happen for pilots in terms of this preparation away from the aircraft. During the development of Anthem, what is some of the feedback you've got from pilots? I would imagine they asked for this sort of thing.
Jason Bialek:
Well, they have been asking for this sort of thing for a while, and some avionics manufacturers, including Honeywell and our Epic systems, we've introduced some basic capability to allow some of these off-board things to be done ahead of time, mostly around the flight plan sharing. But what we haven't done until now, where we've got that connectivity built in, is allowing for as many things to be done ahead of time and, more importantly, not being dependent on those personal devices transferring that data to the flight deck when you power on avionics.
Jason Bialek:
So, from a development perspective, the feedback we're getting from pilots is really positive across the board. They all like what they're seeing, mostly because it fits more with how we operate as humans. We like to prepare everything before we get to the airplane, and so this just allows us to do more of that. From a time savings perspective, it really makes the time phase, if you will, from when you power up the avionics to when you started the engines and you're taxiing out, a lot more... It feels a lot more organized, a lot cleaner, and a lot less stressful or time-compressed.
Adam Kress:
Okay. Let's talk a little bit about the user experience and the cockpit displays and what you touch and feel and see if you're in the pilot's seat. I know simplicity has been a big theme in the development of Honeywell Anthem and only providing the info you need when you need it. So what are some of the highlights of the UX, if you will?
Jason Bialek:
Well, the first thing I like to start with is visualization and the fonts and colors. So our human factors team, I personally believe, is the best in the industry. We've got several individuals who've spent time with multiple OEMs in that role, in fact, in senior HF roles, so they got to see different market segments. Many of them have flight experience. So it's not just a academic type HF approach to things. It's also a practical, "This is how pilots can be helped." So when you look at the fonts and the colors and the layouts, how effective we've been with respect to decluttering the symbology and the way that's presented, and then you combine that with visualization, which is a way of saying instead of having to read a bunch of text on the display, instead, you're looking at symbols and colors, and you're able to quickly interpret what you're seeing without reading a bunch of text and fields.
Jason Bialek:
In addition, where there is text, we're not distracting with a lot of colors. We're giving a very high-contrast, clear, and easy-to-read presentation. Menu structures are flat, meaning you're only going one, two, three clicks deep virtually across the board. It's very rare when you go to four clicks. We combine that with matrix menus, which are the same between our FMS interface and anything that pops up when you touch objects on the map. Very intuitive pilot interface windows all work the same wherever you put them. We can put them in any location, really, in the cockpit, left or right of the PFD, left or right of the map, et cetera, for four display configurations. We can put two PI views in below in that lower position, on that single screen in a lower position.
Jason Bialek:
So when you think about how comfortable pilots are in some of the more traditional cockpits, usually, that comfort level doesn't happen until 30, 40, 45 hours in, even for general aviation type avionics systems, to use some examples, some of the older GPS navigators, those take hours to get used to and be comfortable in complex flight environments, even though they're simpler. Then those, of course, just translated into the mid-size jet avionics systems we see today, and even those, as simple as they can be, take a while to get used to. The way you break through that and the way you get to the comfort level that I believe is achieved through Anthem as a direct result of Honeywell's highly experienced human factors team.
Jason Bialek:
I don't want to leave out the HUE team either. We have a dedicated design team, which focuses specifically on those cockpit layouts and how humans interact with it from a design... Think Apple, think high-end design firms and the differences between websites. Some websites you really like, and others are like, "Who designed this?" Well, we've got a very talented HUE team, we call it, human user experience, that works along together closely with that human factors team. The result is when you sit down in that flight deck and you have those symbols and colors and the simple menus and the simple layouts combined with that visualization, even very low experience pilots become comfortable much more quickly.
Adam Kress:
Okay. So I guess if you take a step back and think about it, you're trying to design an integrated cockpit that is for, to an extent, of course, pilots who are working and flying today, but the folks, young men and women who might be in their teens or 20s now, that their whole lives have been raised on screens and touch screens. Naturally, that would transition into what you see in the cockpit. So I'm curious, from younger folks that have maybe had a chance with the demonstrator or helped you in research, what do you hear from them in terms of that user experience?
Jason Bialek:
I hear that it's familiar to them because they're used to those consumer devices. We do have primarily touch as our mode of interaction with the cockpit. However, we will still have, for some installations, a cursor control device. For the smaller, lighter-weight vehicles, that control of the cursor will likely be through a hand stabilization touch and simple tactile knobs. Even though those newer generations are very used to touch and gestures, there still is a place for tactile, and we plan to support that. But if you look at specifically how used to, say, consumer device symbology or interface methods these... Even older generations, now that we've all been using these iPhones and iPads for who knows how long now, 10 years, maybe 12, we're all different. It's not even just the younger generation, and we're expecting to be able to do things much more quickly. That's what touch offers.
Jason Bialek:
You watch the difference, say, between interacting with an older cockpit, say, in even a GA airplane, where you've got everything's federated, there are a bunch of switches, you've got five or six different panels all brought together on the same instrument panel that you're trying to interface with in a simple two display glass kind of installation. There are at least two other avionics companies out there with those types of installations. The way they navigate through the menus and all the buttons you have to push are quite a bit slower than what you get with a well-designed, highly visual, touch-based interface. So both for that newer generation and the older generation, as you're used to these consumer devices, when you sit down in an Anthem flight deck, you'll see symbology that is the same, whether it's opening menus or going back or selecting things on those menus. Most oftentimes, you'll find that that's basically the same as the consumer device approach.
Adam Kress:
Okay. So what is the effect that this user experience, as well as all the new advanced safety features, has on pilot training? Does this complicate things? Does it make it more simple?
Jason Bialek:
It simplifies it only in... So there are a couple of things there. We simplify the basic navigation bit of it, so you don't have to spend a lot of time thinking about, "Okay, how do I get to this menu? How do I get to this page? Where are these things on various pages?" That's great business for flight safety and SIMCOM and other training companies who have to essentially get you used to the complicated aspects of today's avionics. Instead, what we do using that training that pilots already have, and this is also true for our deep integration with ForeFlight, where people already know how to use ForeFlight, we're not asking them to learn a completely different navigation interface.
Jason Bialek:
If you want to do your flight planning, including route modifications, using ForeFlight because you already know how to do that, by all means, do that, and then you just got one or two clicks after you do that in ForeFlight, and your FMS is using the new plan. So, across the board, we're doing a lot of different things is to make sure that whatever those pilots are coming into an Anthem cockpit with in terms of experience, whether that's with consumer devices or it's with other avionics providers' cockpits or it's just aviation experience in general, you won't have to relearn things. You won't have to spend hours and hours at a SIMCOM or a flight safety to be comfortable in the cockpit.
Adam Kress:
Yeah. Well, safety is always number one, priority one in aviation. So what are some of the brand new safety features that have been integrated into Honeywell Anthem that we haven't seen before or have only seen in other places?
Jason Bialek:
Well, so I'll start with... Even though this isn't new, synthetic vision on Honeywell systems is significantly different than other synthetic vision you see. Synthetic vision is a representation of the outside world that allows you to essentially see, a lot like you'd see in a flight simulator, what is going on outside, whether or not you can actually see outside. What's different between the Honeywell system and, say, other avionics systems is the way it's presented, so high resolution terrain, a very good database, which is much more accurate than some of the other synthetic vision systems out there, and, most importantly, conformal presentation, which allows us, together with 3D way points and traffic and our runway and airport representations in SVS and our energy-based flight director, flight path vector Q, to very quickly present a visual picture that most pilots can understand.
Jason Bialek:
So they're not having to do that mental math when they're trying to plan vertical descents or how to intercept a final approach course or what flight path angle they may need to be at in order to make the next altitude constraint on an approach into any given mountain airport. You could very easily with the conformal SVS that Honeywell offers. You really can't do this with other SVS systems as easily. You can fly a very precise path into a mountain airstrip or on a noise abatement type approach without ending up in a situation where your speed is out of control or you're off-profile, creating a safety risk. So Honeywell's SVS is not new, but it's significantly different than our competitors, and it's much better for those reasons.
Jason Bialek:
What is new is 3D airport moving maps. We deployed that on higher-end jets, and we'll be bringing that into other market segments, very high quality representation of the outside world, including where to hold short, taxiway signage so if you're at an unfamiliar airport at night or in low visibility, you're not confused, you're not disoriented, you know exactly where those taxiways are. On that 3D AMM, we have a thing called taxi assist. I should say that's on 3D and 2D AMM, but I'll get to 2D AMM in a minute. We have a thing called taxi assist, which is a lot like a Google Map three-dimensional view of your route.
Jason Bialek:
A lot of folks listening are very familiar with Google Maps and how you see your route on that. Taxi assist is like that, only instead of basically being able to drive any road you want or the most efficient route in Google Maps, we have a thing called air traffic control, where you have to follow those instructions. So a lot of the incidents and accidents that occur, runway incursions, which is where an airplane is in the wrong place, creating a safety hazard, or ground collisions, where two airplanes connect with each other because one maybe was not following the correct taxi clearance, this path is set up in a way to minimize the potential for that and to make it clear where there may be a disconnect with what ATC cleared that particular aircraft to do.
Jason Bialek:
Then we've got 2D AMM, which is a much more detailed representation of the overhead view of the airport. We combine that with surface traffic ADS-B in and out, the ability to tag that traffic so you can follow traffic either on the ground or even airborne, and 3D way points and traffic. So on the PFD, on the synthetic vision primary flight display representation that's right in front of the pilots, you can see traffic visually without even looking at any of the data on that traffic. The distance and bearing, you can look at it visually, very quickly pick up exactly how far away that traffic is and what the bearing is.
Jason Bialek:
For 3D way points, again, because it's a conformal presentation on the primary flight display, I can take a very low experienced pilot, in fact, sometimes I've seen this with folks who don't even have a pilot's license, and point out the way point on the display and say, "Hey, what heading or what track would we turn to to head toward that way point?" Because of the way the symbology is on the PFD, even with that low experience, I get an answer most of the time, virtually all the time, that's correct, "Yeah, turn left to 2-5-0, it looks like," because that display is so well-designed. So those are some of the new features. We've also got landing assist, takeoff assist, engine out guidance, and the secure cockpit browser, mission manager. We can get into maybe mission manager and secure cockpit browser when we talk about connected. But there there's just a ton of new and exciting stuff in this cockpit.
Adam Kress:
From a broader perspective, it sounds like a lot of the technology that typically would only be available in commercial airliners or high-end business jets is being integrated into Honeywell Anthem to be made available for general aviation pilots. What effects do you think that's going to have on the GA space?
Jason Bialek:
Well, it's going to improve safety. A myth out there, if you will, that I hear frequently is, "Well, that sounds awful complicated," and I can understand where that comes from. The reality is these features, a lot like terrain alerting and warning systems before we had those in GA cockpits, people were like, "Well, I don't know why I need that, I'm happy with my six pack, and I've got a sectional chart, and I just need to know what my sector altitude is, and I'm good to go." Then, over time, people realize that these things really are helpful more than they are distracting or complicated. So the same thing is true for a lot of these advanced features we're talking about that were normally reserved for that high-end business jet. They're visual. It takes very little time to train somebody on how to understand what is being presented. It's not like an advanced FMS function or an advanced navigation function. They're not those types of things. They're very easy to use, requires minimal training, highly visual type safety-improving features.
Jason Bialek:
So how it's going to change general aviation, in my view, especially, let's say, a takeoff assist, where you see immediately what your margin in is to the end of the runway for that particular takeoff or you get a warning ahead of time, "Hey, this density altitude that we're seeing, we don't recommend taking off," or you see that your trim or configuration flaps or other aspects of configuration are not correct, that will prevent an accident. In terms of how complicated... I'm sorry, there's one other thing on the takeoff assist, and that is for IFR departures, minimum climb gradient.
Jason Bialek:
For any IFR pilots who are listening, you've been there many a times before, where we know we have to hit a certain climb rate for a certain ground speed in order to be compliant with an instrument departure. Well, that will be displayed along with your active, real-time climb gradient that you're achieving, and so there will be no question whether you're getting the climb you need on that departure or not. Of course, if you're not, then before you have a controlled flight into terrain type problem and end up having an accident or an incident, instead, you'll be able to make a different decision, whether that's to remain BFR over the top of the airport or some other decision. So all these safety features are not really driving a lot of additional training. Instead, they're going to be improving general aviation safety.
Adam Kress:
Okay. We talked a little bit earlier about connectivity and flight prep and all the things that connectivity allows. But one thing we haven't touched on yet is the secure cockpit browser. So tell me a little bit about what that is and what it enables.
Jason Bialek:
Secure cockpit browser, think of it as a pilot's lounge level of information access that continues beyond the point where you step out of the pilot's lounge, or another way to think of it is, "Hey, when I'm home, I've got all this access, and then I get to the airport, and I still have the access on the ground with my iPad or my phone, but now I've got an iPad or a phone that's loose in the cockpit, and then the moment I take off, I pretty much lose that access." With secure cockpit browser combined with the right kind of, for general aviation in particular, lower cost connectivity solution that works airborne, you have a non-distracting EFB window on the four displays that you can use to access that information that was normally only available to you on the ground. That includes alternate weather sources, sites like windy.com.
Jason Bialek:
The FAA now has a pretty interesting... I don't know if it's a prototype, but I think they plan to make it available long-term, sort of an integrated information window, including web cameras and NOTAMs and graphical TFRs and everything else all basically in one place. That type of content is accessible through the secure cockpit browser, and then any web applications, so if... Mirror Check, as an example, had a version of their software that they run on iPads and Androids, now available to use in that secure cockpit browser. You'd be able to use that right there in the cockpit versus having it on a separate iPad or phone.
Jason Bialek:
Then, finally, OEMs, the aircraft manufacturers themselves, can bring in concierge service, pilot support services, maintenance information, and maybe procedures and customer support type access could all easily be brought through that secure cockpit browser. It's running independently of the avionics, so there's no security risk in terms of somebody coming from a ground-based Internet connection into critical avionics systems. It's just not designed that way. It's architected in a way that that's not possible. So you get that additional access to information without a security risk.
Adam Kress:
Jason, so mission manager is another feature that's unique to Honeywell Anthem. I know it could have distinct advantages, particularly for single pilot operations. But tell me again a little bit what this does and what it enables.
Jason Bialek:
Mission manager is a simple time-based view. So in today's cockpits, a lot of times, the way point list gives you a ton of information, but you're not really getting what you want at the top level, so time to the next way point, time to your destination, what's next in terms of airways and arrivals versus having a long string of 50-plus way points. So it's a simple view of what's next in the mission. That includes automatically queued radio frequencies and charts and an icon for checking weather. If you had a CAS message of some sort come up, it would be a single click to that checklist. So let's say that you're a single pilot GA type, and a typical scenario is you take off, you forget to do your climb checklist. In mission manager, you would still see that climb checklist icon sitting there on your mission manager timeline until you completed the checklist.
Jason Bialek:
If you're a low proficiency pilot, you're still getting used to the airplane, things are a little overwhelming, you just simply look at the mission manager view and you can see, "Okay, I'm going to contact tower now, or I'm going to pull up this chart, which gives me the taxi diagram for that particular airport." That's all front and center right in front of you. We call it bringing task level zero to the forefront. So instead of going through complicated menu structures, which we don't really have a lot of that in Anthem anyway, but instead of going through complicated menu structures, you have a single click or a two-click access to all of the most common tasks.
Jason Bialek:
In addition, you have the ability to add reminders or add triggers. So if you're a single pilot and you want to put four or five critical items in that you don't want to forget, whether it's call the FBO and get your car ready or text passengers ETA, you can set those in there. Then, more importantly, with Forge, with Honeywell Forge, the cloud infrastructure, you can actually have those messages, text passengers the ETA, as an example, automatically trigger when you fly past that point in your mission manager. So you don't even have to be distracted by some of these logistics. It just happens in the background. So it's really a powerful new tool that is a simple way of interacting with the flight deck, and it brings in that additional, I call it, coordination with folks outside of the airplane without increasing pilot workload.
Adam Kress:
Okay. Excellent. Well, Jason, I know, in your career, you've been a pilot for a long time. You've flown a ton of different types of aircraft. Anthem is going to be the next flight deck that's going to start first appearing in a lot of urban air mobility vehicles and then in general aviation, business aviation, all the way up to commercial aircraft, and then also likely in defense as well. But tell me what the experience has been, if you could sum it up from a personal standpoint, on developing something from scratch that's going to have such a big impact.
Jason Bialek:
In a word, it's exciting, and it's humbling a little bit because it's really cool to see all the great work that the engineering teams, the human factors, HUE teams, all of the advanced tech teams... Basically, some of these things that are coming together in this integrated flight deck have been in work for eight or 10 years, and so to see all that come together so that we can change the daily lives of pilots in multiple market segments, to me, is very exciting.
Adam Kress:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Jason, for joining us on the podcast today. Super exciting stuff, and we appreciate having you on. Thanks.
Jason Bialek:
Thank you.
Adam Kress:
And, of course, thanks again to all our listeners out there. We appreciate you, and we'll catch you on the next episode of Aerospace Unplugged.