New Cirrus Avionics Capability Designed to Avoid Hypoxia/LOC Accidents

At the 2010 Oshkosh EAA Fly-In, one of the more intriguing announcements involved additional evolutionary changes for the Cirrus Perspective Flight deck. Obviously taking a hint at the many upgrades (and the attention they got for them) pioneered by Avidyne, Cirrus nudged its avionics partners and 'ESP' was borne...

This 'electronic monitoring and exceedance-correcting technology' works to assist the pilot in maintaining his or her aircraft in a safe, flight-stable condition, helping to prevent the onset of stall/spins, overspeeds, steep spirals or other loss-of-control conditions, should the pilot become distracted, disoriented or incapacitated during flight. While a number of other capabilities were introduced, one particular associated offering really caught our attention... especially after having to report a number of tragedies in the last few years where aviators flying unpressurized in the flight levels succumbed to oxygen starvation and lost their lives.

They call it "Automatic Descent Mode" and that means is Hypoxia Protection for GA pilots that has heretofore never been available before. And its damned impressive. Cirrus' Hypoxia Recognition and Recovery system is designed to nudge the pilot, electronically, now and then to make sure that they're alert and capable of exercising their responsibilities as Pilot-In Command by: 

• Monitor and detect pilot activity , i.e. evidence of conscious pilot
• Above 15,000’, if no pilot interaction (button press) within certain time interval, system creates an advisory, followed by a caution, followed by a warning to solicit a pilot response
• If no response, AP will enter ADM, descend to 14,000 and remain level for 4 minutes with warning tone throughout
• If no response, AP will further descend to 12,500’ and remain

FMI: www.cirrusaircraft.com, www.aero-tv.net, www.youtube.com/aerotvnetwork, http://twitter.com/AeroNews