Max-Viz (Booth 3769) and its enhanced vision system (EVS) products
are popping up all over the place, on helicopters and turboprops
as well as jets.
"It's a little bit of a surprise," says company president
Gregg Fawkes, "for people who think that EVS costs $1 million
and requires a head-up display for landing credit. But there's a
broader segment of the market that's interested in situational awareness-safety,
really -- with a head-down display."
The company sees "a lot of interest and take-up" in
its simpler, under-$100,000, single-band EVS-1000 system in a wide
range of markets, including helicopters and turboprops. Max-Viz
is seeking supplemental type certificates (STCs) on the Sikorsky
S-76 and Bell 412, King Air and Pilatus PC-12 (the PC-12 displayed
in the NBAA hall has an EVS-1000 installed). Turboprops and helicopters
can actually benefit more from EVS than larger jets, Fawkes argues,
because they make more use of unimproved airfields. STCs for the
Falcon 50 and Falcon 900 are also in the works.
Also new here is Max-Viz's high-end product, the dual-band EVS-2000,
installed on a Citation X demonstrator. When Max-Viz announced its
intention to develop a high-performance EVS using short-wave and
long-wave uncooled sensors and proprietary software to fuse their
signals together into a single picture, many rivals were openly
skeptical. But, says Fawkes, the EVS-2000 is on track to certification
at the end of the year, and will be offered as a factory option
and a retrofit on the Citation X.
EVS-2000, says Fawkes, "is the next generation of EVS."
It incorporates the newest uncooled sensor technology-"the
sensor of the future, and the basis of all infrared programs as
we go forward"-and it represents the first certificated application
of fusion. The FAA has already approved the software that combines
the short-wave image-which responds best to lights-with the long-wave
picture.
Max-Viz is completing a demonstration tour of what it calls "ten
of the most difficult airports in the USA," using the EVS-2000
on the company's own Cessna 421T demonstrator. The airports typically
include "black holes" like Sun Valley, Idaho, where runway
lights provide the only reference and the approach is cluttered
with unlit terrain. Imagery from these tests will be displayed at
NBAA.
Cessna's basic Citation X installation presents the EVS image
on the flight management system control and display unit, on the
throttle quadrant. However, Max-Viz is offering and demonstrating
a dedicated EVS display that would be mounted closer to the head-forward
eye-line. "Most video displays are optimized for color,"
says Fawkes, "but this has a high dynamic range and contrast
ratio."
Max-Viz's plans don't stop with the EVS-2000. Under development-partially
driven by USAF requirements-is a true all-weather system that combines
dual-band IR with a unique radio-frequency sensor that is not quite
a radar, says Fawkes: it's a staring array that detects 94 GHz (millimeter-wave)
passive radiation from the ground, and can be augmented with a 94
GHz illuminator in the most severe conditions.
-Bill Sweetman
Max-Viz STCs
Max-Viz (Booth 3769) is talking up a trio of supplemental
type certificates for its EVS-1000 enhanced vision systems
here at NBAA 2003:
Western Aircraft (Boise, Idaho) is wrapping up an STC
for the EVS-1000 for Pilatus PC-12 retrofits;
Two Bell operators, one with a 212 for corporate use and
the other a 412 EMS operator, have picked the EVS-1000 for
their helicopters, expecting a blanket STC for both types
to be approved this month; and
Flightcraft, with FBO locations in Portland and Eugene,
Ore., is seeking an STC to install the EVS-1000 on its fleet
of King Airs with a target date of April 2004.
