I may have found a cheap way to install a Head-Up Display (HUD) in a GA aircraft.
There are several HUDs available for cars on the road, but as far as I know, they all run their own SatNav applications which are not suitable for aircraft.
Over on Kickstarter, there’s a project for a vehicle HUD called Hudway Cast, and the difference is it simply displays whatever app is running on your smartphone. My idea is to run Garmin Pilot on my iPhone which receives attitude information from my Garmin GTX345 via Bluetooth which will then show up on the HUD. It will look something like this:
An improvement would be for the screen to look more like a real HUD, in monochrome, such as the Boeing 787 HUD:
Does anybody here have the skills to write an application like this?
The HUD should arrive in January. I’ll update this post when I’ve had a chance to try it.
Happy New Year!
chrisparker wrote:
I may have found a cheap way to install a Head-Up Display (HUD) in a GA aircraft.
Here’s an aviation version:
http://grtavionics.com/home/efis-systems/heads-up-display/
Nope. That one doesn’t give a collimated image, either. So the eye needs to change focus between the image and infinity.
I am a bit surprised that car HUDs does not do that – thy are projecting an image that is focused at around 3m ahead of the screen, why not innfinity? All it needs is a slightly different curvature of the screen, or am I mistaken?
I’ve now ordered the Hudly Wireless, a development of the one wigglyamp suggested. It wil run the GRT HUD software.
One interesting solution for a HUD focused further away in a SEP aircraft is a laser projector drawing an image on the rotating propeller. You don’t even need the combiner element!
Chris what data are you going to project on the HUD. I understood you at least need a GRT Mini for the GRT app to work with the HUD
One interesting solution for a HUD focused further away in a SEP aircraft is a laser projector drawing an image on the rotating propeller. You don’t even need the combiner element!
Cool idea – a HUD can give you a flight path in case of an engine out. Ooops…
placido wrote:
Chris what data are you going to project on the HUD. I understood you at least need a GRT Mini for the GRT app to work with the HUD
Hope not. According to the page I looked at, only the software is required.
I was always wondering why Avionics manufacturer are not building the same HUD displays that the auto industry has for years. The HUD in my car is amazing. I see information and pictographic symbols floating like holographs 1.5 meters in front of me. The eye does not need to adjust between near and far. It works in day and night and is crisp, sharp and detailed. There is no ugly frame, like in Chris Parkers first image, and field of view is wide across half of the driver window. It really looks like in the picture below. Imagine an attitude indicator would be displayed like this. It’s just a projector build into the dashboard. What’s holding avionics companies back building this into an aircraft dashboard?
