PARIS, 27 June 2009. Emirates Airline signed a Memorandum of Understanding to purchase Honeywell's SmartLanding for the majority of its fleet, and that Emirates will be the launch customer for this new product that builds on existing Honeywell avionics technology to address runway excursions.
"Emirates has performed numerous evaluations of the SmartLanding advisories in their simulator with pilots and will be the first to incorporate these new safety features in the majority of their fleet," says TK Kallenbach, vice president of product management at Honeywell Aerospace. SmartLanding is expected to be incorporated into Emirates Boeing 777-200/300 and Airbus A330 and A340 in 2009.
Honeywell made the announcement earlier this month at the Paris Air Show.
The Honeywell solution reduces the risk of runway excursions by alerting pilots if the aircraft is approaching the runway too high, too fast or is not configured properly for landing – common components of an unstabilized approach.
"We were one of the first airlines to implement the first generation Runway Awareness and Advisory System (RAAS) two years ago; this latest initiative with Honeywell is an extension of that commitment," says Capt. Alan Stealey, Emirates' divisional senior vice president of flight operations says "We are very excited to be working with Honeywell on this technology which will ensure our flight deck crew continue to be supported by the best safety systems in the industry."
Honeywell's SmartLanding is a software enhancement to Honeywell's proven Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS), installed on more than 30,000 airline and business aviation aircraft. Through a simple software upgrade to EGPWS, SmartLanding improves pilot situational awareness and helps break the chain of events that can lead to a runway excursion, by providing aural and visual alerts upon approach only if the aircraft has not met established safety criteria.
Using Global Positioning System (GPS) data, SmartLanding alerts are based on aircraft position, speed, and flight path compared to airport runway locations stored in Honeywell's worldwide terrain and runway database, which has proven itself for more than 600 million flight hours.
With both auditory alerts and visual messaging, Honeywell's system supports both heads-up and quiet cockpits.
SmartLanding complements Standard Operating Procedures and FOQA / Flight Data Monitoring programs to improve safety by encouraging compliance with stabilized approach criteria:
• aircraft should be stable at 1000 feet above the runway;
• aircraft must be stable at 500 feet above the runway;
• aircraft is properly configured to land; and
• aircraft is on the correct vertical path to land
The SmartLanding feature includes callouts for long landing if the aircraft extends beyond a pre-determined touch down zone, together with callouts of runway distance remaining during landing and rollout. Also included is a check for inadvertent barometric altimeter correction errors, which continue to be a contributing factor in Controlled Flight Into Terrain accidents and incidents.
