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Honeywell and NASA tackle supersonic sound pollution
Since Concord took its last flight in November 2003, everyone from aviation enthusiasts to industry leaders have pined for the day when supersonic travel became a reality again.

Yet, several challenges face modern efforts for commercial supersonic flight, with the biggest hurdle to its general acceptance being sonic booms.

Sonic booms are hard to predict, and they are impossible to ignore. To remedy this issue and open up the doors to commercial supersonic travel across the U.S., Honeywell is working with NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center to study the most effective way to visually inform pilots flying supersonic jets about sonic booms.

Honeywell has successfully flight-tested new cockpit displays and software that helps pilots see sonic booms before they happen, allowing them to reroute their flight immediately and reduce the effects of the sonic boom over populated areas.

Early in 2015, Honeywell was awarded a two-year contract as part of NASA’s Commercial Supersonic Technology (CST) Project to aid in overcoming the issue of sonic booms as a roadblock to commercial supersonic flight. In their first year under the contract, Honeywell and NASA have designed and developed predictive software and display technology that has been successfully tested in flight over commercial airspace.

“NASA is committed to making supersonic flight over land a reality, and key to achieving this is to reduce the impact of sonic booms,” said Bob Witwer, vice president of Advanced Technology at Honeywell Aerospace. “Using the Honeywell User Experience design concept, our engineering team has tackled how to intuitively inform pilots about upcoming terrain, weather and more - now we are helping pilots predict and visualize noise to tackle sonic booms.”

“Important to our progress in reducing the sonic boom impact over land is to have a predictive sonic boom display in supersonic aircraft cockpits that ensures our future quiet supersonic aircraft remain below acceptable noise levels,” said Brett Pauer, NASA CST subproject manager at Armstrong Flight Research Center. “We have partnered with avionics companies like Honeywell to translate our NASA algorithms into an integrated avionics system that is tested and evaluated by pilots.”

Honeywell’s predictive software and displays for supersonic jets are in ongoing development and testing with NASA. The conceptual designs used under NASA’s Commercial Supersonic Technology Project are tied to Honeywell’s Interactive Navigation (INAV) technology. INAV is the aerospace industry’s first system providing the simultaneous display of traffic, terrain, airspace, airways, airports and navigation aids. INAV software is designed to allow easy addition of new display formats to existing cockpits, and the predictive software for sonic booms takes full advantage of this feature, allowing it to be effortlessly incorporated into existing and future airplanes. Already in use on Honeywell Primus Epic integrated cockpits on Dassault, Gulfstream, Pilatus and Beechcraft aircraft, INAV will help make the next generation of supersonic flight a reality.

BlueSky Business Aviation News | 5th May 2016 | Issue #366