AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2020 - 35

business jets, and it's intuitive and easy to
use. Simply "put the jelly [the magenta
flight director cue] in the doughnut [the
flight path marker's green circle]," to use
one colloquialism.
For example, during an ILS approach
with heading and nav sources selected,
you'd see the flight director cue giving you
heading commands as you intercept the
final approach course. As the localizer or
other nav source centers, the flight director
cue switches you to follow the course-
along with vertical guidance in the case of
precision approaches.
The SkyDisplay differs from those
high-dollar, certified HUDs in that it has
a nonconformal display. Among other
things, this means that the flight path
marker doesn't precisely indicate the airplane's projected path on the landscape
or sky ahead. It will be close, but pilots
accustomed to flying a flight path marker
centered on a runway threshold will find

that it will be several feet off. "In order
to keep the system simple and low-cost,
we had to sacrifice that small element of
accuracy," Schneider said. "But on the
other hand, this system has a wider eyebox [viewing area on the HUD screen].
This means that unlike conformal HUDs,
you have more allowable head movement."
Conformal HUDs have a narrow viewing
range and require that your eyes be centered straight ahead. Move your head away
from their small central viewing areas and
you lose the HUD imagery.
A demo flight in MyGoFlight's Cirrus
SR22 proved the SkyDisplay's utility. The
combiner may be smallish, but it gives a
great view. The zero-pitch line stands out
during steep turns; just keep the flight
path marker on the line and your altitude
won't stray. As for instrument work and
other navigation chores, all the necessary
pitch, bank, power, and guidance information is easy to interpret, and right on the

combiner. For precision approaches, there's
even a 3-degree dashed pitch line, which
helps back up glideslope commands as
you fly down final. For all its attributes, the
SkyDisplay is not certified for standalone
use; it serves as supplemental information to
conventional, panel-mounted instruments.
We used the HUD on all our
landings at Denver's Centennial Airport-
MyGoFlight's home base-and rarely felt
the need to look down at the instrument
panel. Instead of scanning an entire panel's worth of real estate, it's all in focus on
the combiner.
Schneider says that the SkyDisplay is
very close to earning supplemental type
certificate approval. Price of the system is set at $25,000 for initial deliveries.
Schneider says that down time for installation should take as little as two days.
mgfproducts.com/pages/hud
EMAIL tom.horne@aopa.org

| 35

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http://www.mgfproducts.com/pages/hud http://www.aspenavionics.com

AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2020