Honeywell's 'AutoTilt' EGPWS on 777 Here

Honeywell has installed and certified its Terrain-Based AutoTilt system on a newly delivered Boeing 777 for Singapore Airlines. This is the first application of the system on a new aircraft.

The new AutoTilt system integrates Honeywell's enhanced ground proximity warning system with the Honeywell RDR-4B weather radar. The EGPWS terrain database supplies information about terrain ahead of the aircraft, and this allows the radar tilt angle to be adjusted automatically.

This avoids situations where the radar is aimed too high and misses weather ahead of the aircraft (as can happen when the aircraft is climbing) or is aimed too low, so that ground clutter obscures the weather picture. Automation is valuable because optimizing weather radar tilt is a time-consuming task when it is most needed, in climb or descent in bad weather.

Honeywell has already delivered 60 retrofit installations of this feature to Singapore Airlines, United and USAirways.

Honeywell also advises that it's received FAA approval for an improved radar antenna drive system which makes the RDR-4A and RDR-4B radars an estimated 600 times more reliable. The current radars have one drive motor for horizontal movement and another for vertical scan. If either fails, the radar is unusable. The new system, ordered by Cathay Pacific, has dual redundant motors in each axis. It can be installed on new or existing radars.