Cockpit display showing sonic boom over land to be developed by NASA and Rockwell Collins
NewsMay 15, 2015
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa. NASA officials tasked engineers at Rockwell Collins to develop a conceptual cockpit display that will enable a visual representation of sonic boom over the Earth’s surface to reduce the impact on populated areas. Under the two-year contract NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center will lead the research, working with experts at Rockwell Collins’ Advanced Technology Center.
Findings made by Rockwell Collins will be applied in NASA’s High Speed Project, which is focused on providing the research and leadership necessary to enable the development of a new generation of supersonic civil transport aircraft.
“In order for supersonic travel over land to happen, pilots will need an intuitive display interface that tells them where the aircraft’s sonic boom is occurring,” says John Borghese, vice president, Advanced Technology Center for Rockwell Collins. “Our team of experts will investigate how best to show this to pilots in the cockpit and develop guidance to most effectively modify the aircraft’s flight path to avoid populated areas or prevent sonic booms.”
Rockwell Collins officials say they will look to leverage the company's avionics display technologies and human factors research team to develop the sonic boom cockpit display, integrating variables such as the aircraft’s movement relative to the ground and the influence of weather on shock waves. Both ground-based and aircraft-measured weather information will be looked at and integrated into the sonic boom display’s software to compute best flight path.
