I foresee a time when our panels are blank flat spaces, made up of drink holders and handy places to store stuff.

Our flight information, formerly presented on expensive flat screens, will be projected onto our eyes with Google Glasses (or something similar). Virtually any configuration will be possible.

It will be like the scene in the Matrix, when Neo asks Trinity "Can you fly a helicopter?" and she answers "Not yet!" 20 seconds later, she can!

Okay, it won't be like that...yet. But we will have all manner of information available, with the format easily and continuously upgradeable.

When that happens, my sweet, new GRT Horizon HXr will look as quaint as a Narco SuperHomer. :D
 
Having had an opportunity to try Google Glass my thought was they are not anywhere near close for primetime. The potential is there and the guys with the licences to get them and work out the bugs will hopefully do a good job for us. For now they are very limited in their functionality and battery life is low. Somehow though I just don't see them ever replacing our glass panels which display way more information than you could possibly see in a tiny screen. You certainly will not be able to read a chart like you can on a tablet, glass panel screen, or paper charts (I'm sure there are still some holdouts here that love their paper). I see them in the future as more of an extension of our existing avionics with perhaps simple 6 pack functions and able to project waypoints and traffic while looking out. There is also the factor that they very possibly will induce motion sickness. After I had them on for a few minutes sitting still and looking around I could feel a headache coming on. While your eyes are focused to looking either close or far the focus to the glass doesn't change as your eyes change focus from near to far.

I have to imagine there are others on here that have tried them. Curious if they have similar impressions and differing perspectives. The idea is awesome and look forward to seeing a final product.
 
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They may be useful for very limited items that require immediate attention, like a warning light, keeping you from having to look into the cockpit to see it and react.
 
My son is a "Beta tester" for the glasses...took act of congress and $1500.00 to get them, but he has been testing them for about a month now. They are basically a Bluetooth linked mini HUD from your smart phone, and are pretty amazing when using the Google GPS in a car. They are voice activated for search comands also, and will bring up almost anything your smart phone will, and equiped with a camera that takes fair pictures. Phone clarity is surprisingly good, being it uses a pick-up that is on the inside of the arm and against your temple. Still a little mind overload for me, but I think they are here to stay.
 
fixnflyguy said:
My son is a "Beta tester" for the glasses...took act of congress and $1500.00 to get them, but he has been testing them for about a month now.
Click to expand...

Not sure what he told you RE: act of congress, but all of us who signed up for the original beta test were put on the back burner, until about a month or so ago, when they opened it to basically everyone- but kept the price at $1500

why you ask? because they are liquidating supply before they release the NEW faster/cheaper/better version....per their release to shareholders, it is due out Q3 of this year, and expected to be priced around $600 or less.
 
JHMCS

Joint helmet mounted cueing systems

The military has been using helmet mounted cues systems for some time. The key to functionality beyond the visual display is the reference system the orients the glasses to your position. In military aircraft their is reference transmitters located at fixed points in the cockpit so that the helmet mounted display knows where you are looking so that it displays correctly. Looking down could give you instrument data. Looking outside terrain airport info. Military systems put a circle around a target. Future aircraft system could put a target around ADSB derived aircraft or depiction of airports extended runways.

The next breakthrough to make google glass work as a cockpit aid will be the positional transmitters placed in our cockpit. It's only a matter of time and I can't wait. Without the positional transmitters it's not an effective aid.
 
f-35

Helmet on F-35 not only integrates all the typical sensor inputs but allows the pilot to look 360 based on tracking input from sensors all around the platform to enable them to shoot off boresight behind. A lot of new cars put the data up on the windscreen a la a HUD. New avionics from multiple vendors use commercial open standard displays with the "secret sauce" being the software. It is probably only a matter of time before all this technology becomes available in our experimental cockpits similar to the rapid adaptation of the iPad into our cockpits.
 
I remember suggesting a few years ago that the ultimate would be a large screen touch panel on each side of the aircraft, with no other instruments. Minority Report-like UI that would allow you to "swipe" a radio onto the screen for communication, then "push" it out of the way when you're not using it. Or split the screen with a Skyview-like display and a moving map or engine instruments.

I'm glad to see that Dynon and Garmin are both heading in this direction. I still think that we overlook a lot of synergies that could be realized... A lot of us carry iPads or Android tablets with large screens. If the Dynon/Garmin/etc. boxes were "black boxes" that communicated with our tablets, then we could just mount the tablets on the panel for flight, and take them home at night to do our flight planning. To achieve this kind of ubiquity would require collaboration within the industry to agree on standards, however, and it doesn't seem like that's happening.

I'm looking forward to the first 12" 16:9 format touchscreens from Dynon. :p
 
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