The objective of this proposed Phase II SBIR effort is to continue Phase I efforts to develop and assess the feasibility of an innovative new flight instrument proposed to replace the traditional Turn Coordinator (or Turn-and-Slip Indicator) currently found in most general aviation (GA) aircraft. The primary innovation is the inclusion of climb-dive information and gyroscopic heading, in addition to the turn-rate information now available, in one low-cost display. In essence, this new "r-Gamma" display concept will "fuse" flight information on one display that the pilot must now gather and correlate from among five separate indicators whenever the aircraft experiences loss of the Attitude Indicator (AI) and the Heading Indicator (HI) due to vacuum system or gauge failure. The innovative technology that makes this concept feasible and affordable, with a projected cost similar to that of today's Turn Coordinator, is derived from a technique recently developed and flight tested by our firm under an SBIR contract that involved tracking the flightpath of a small USAF sensor vehicle. We firmly believe this concept has the potential to improve significantly the safety of emergency "partial-panel" flight operations in GA aircraft.
Potential NASA Commercial Applications: (LIMIT 100 WORDS) The principal commercial application of the r-Gamma system is to serve as an improved substitute for the Turn Coordinator currently found in virtually all GA aircraft. The r-Gamma instrument will provide substantial additional functionality and greatly improved safety for GA aircraft, at price comparable to that of the Turn Coordinator and substantially below that of available alternatives. There are roughly 200,000 GA aircraft registered in the U.S. alone. Nearly 70% of those are light single-engine aircraft, probably equipped with conventional Turn Coordinators or equivalent. Virtually all these, plus additional international customers, will be potential candidates for the r-Gamma system.
Potential NON-NASA Commercial Applications:
: (LIMIT 100 WORDS) Potential NASA applications for the r-Gamma concept are unknown, but this technology could conceivably be applied to any application in which a low-cost solution is required for the estimation of vehicle flightpath in atmospheric environments. The r-Gamma technology developed under this effort may also be applied to cost-reduction efforts associated with the Synthetic Vision System envisioned by the Aviation Safety Program.
