Universal Avionics Synthetic Vision System Impresses

Universal Avionics (UA) has partnered with AerSale—a Coral Gables, Florida-based supplier of aftermarket aeronautical products and engineering services—to develop and certify AerAware Enhanced Flight Vision System (EFVS).

Following an intensive and protracted development effort, Universal Avionics is pleased to announce the successful conclusion of the certification flight test program prescribed by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

The AerAware solution features Universal Avionics’s ClearVision EVS-5000 multi-spectral camera and SkyLens wearable head-up displays. On 19 August 2023, AerAware completed the fifth and final set of TIA (Type Inspection Approval) certification test-flights on its Boeing 737NG aircraft, thereby occasioning the culmination of a certification process spanning approximately one-hundred-flight-hours.

AerSale CEO Nicolas Finazzo stated: “We are pleased to reach this milestone in the development of AerAware, and we look forward to proceeding to Supplemental Type Certification (STC) and commercialization of the product.”

Universal Avionics CEO Dror Yahav set forth: “Congratulations to the Universal Avionics and AerSale team on this joint achievement, a big step in bringing enhanced vision capabilities inspired by innovative military technologies to commercial airlines. The ability to continue operations in low-visibility conditions saves time for passengers in the air and on the ground, while significantly improving safety and situational awareness.” 

Stated broadly, ClearVision is an EFVS solution by which pilots may actualize improved situational awareness and aircraft control during day or night periods of degraded outside visibility. The system contemporaneously expedites and enhances the safety of aircraft departure and approach operations in hard IFR conditions.

The AerAware Enhanced Flight Vision System presents advanced imaging technology and real-time aircraft primary flight information to pilots via the SkyLens Head-Wearable Display (HWD). SkyLens enables pilots to continuously operate heads-up and monitor aircraft performance while retaining situational awareness of their aircraft and the positions and states of such within evolving flight environments. The groundbreaking EFVS leverages a synthesis of multispectral ClearVision sensor imaging and 3D synthetic vision to provide pilots an unprecedented degree of situational awareness in even the most restrictive Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC). By dint of Universal Avionics’s ClearVision architecture, visual references for approach and landing are made apparent to pilots significantly earlier than would be possible by out-of-window viewing with the naked eye. The system permits pilots—within both the actual and regulatory contexts—to descend below published natural vision instrument approach minimums. The advantage of such a capability is patently evident.

Universal Avionics is a subsidiary of Elbit Systems Ltd., an Israel-based defense manufacturer of  aerospace, land, and naval systems; Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) solutions; Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS); advanced electro-optics; electronic warfare suites; SIGnal INTelligence (SIGINT) systems; data links and communications systems; and radios.

FMI: www.usac.com