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FLYING HONEYWELL’S FMS-GUIDED VISUAL APPROACHES

Visual approaches may look easy, but formal guidance is a significant safety enhancement.

Honeywell has developed FGV approaches at about a dozen airports and is working on more, to provide a safer path—either hand-flown or on autopilot—to runway ends that offer some additional challenge and risk to business jet pilots. The resulting paths use radius-to-fix legs “which provide a precise track over the ground to align the aircraft while observing known airspace restrictions,” according to Honeywell.


Most airports have instrument approach procedures that align the aircraft with a runway end, but not all runways—especially those constrained by terrain or airspace restrictions—have an IFR approach. Visual approaches can be more expeditious, but they lack guidance, and pilots must rely on their skill and judgment to keep the aircraft on the right path. This doesn’t always work out, as demonstrated by the crash of Asiana Flight 214 on July 6, 2013, at San Francisco International Airport on a clear day, where the Boeing 777’s pilots seemed confused about exactly how to fly a visual approach without any formal guidance and stalled on short final.


The FGV approaches are designed to mitigate risks inherent in visual approaches by providing lateral and vertical guidance that results in a stable approach. Honeywell has made these visual approaches available as a subscription service that adds them to FMS databases in qualifying aircraft. These include the Bombardier Global Express; Citation Sovereign and X; Falcon 900EX EASy, 900C/EX, 2000 EASy, 7X, and 8X; Embraer 170/190; Gulfstream GV, G450/G550, G500/G600, and G650; Hawker 4000; and Pilatus PC-24 and PC-12 NG/NGX. Honeywell is working with CAE and FlightSafety to add the FGV approach database to the simulators for these aircraft.


As of early May, Honeywell had developed FGV approaches for 10 runways at nine airports, with four more runways at three new airports in development. These include Singapore Seletar (WSSL, Runway 3/21), Westchester County (KHPN, Runway 34), and Napa County (KAPC, Runway 24).


Honeywell’s FMS-guided visual approaches represent a significant leap forward in aviation safety and efficiency. By providing formal guidance on visual approaches, Honeywell is enhancing the ability of pilots to execute these approaches with precision and confidence, reducing risks and improving outcomes in various challenging conditions. As more airports and aircraft integrate these advanced FGV approaches, the future of business aviation looks safer and more reliable than ever.

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