We Fly on Honeywell’s Boeing 757 and Experience Its New Runway Safety Alert Technology – AIN

So, Doug, tell us a little bit about this aircraft. This is the Honeywell Aerospace 757 test bed. It services our engine department, so it does a lot of engine testing, which is why you see a lot of structural mods. But we also do SATCOM, radar and general technology demonstrations, as well as development on the aircraft. So it's a flying surrogate test bed for a lot of our technology. I'm joining the flight today to get a firsthand look at Honeywell Aerospace's new surface alerting technology, SURF-A, which is expected to receive FAA certification in 2026. It can be integrated into any aircraft equipped with Honeywell avionics and helps pilots avoid runway incursions. Smart X, which is already available, helps pilots avoid runway excursions and wrong surface operations. Runway related incidents like incursions and excursions could be deadly, and every second counts when pilots need to take action to avoid a collision. Training is one element in layers of safety, helping pilots avoid accidents. But another layer of safety can help reduce the likelihood that the holes in the Swiss cheese line up. Honeywell is showing us how these warnings work in real time. These demonstrations are based on real life incidents where this technology could have given pilots more time to react. To get some insight into how this tech can help save lives, I spoke with Thea Feireisen, a distinguished technical fellow at Honeywell Aerospace. I've been with Honeywell for 30 years and was awarded distinguished technical fellow in January. Thank you. I'm also the first female in a hundred and a hundred and twenty year company. I feel like I need a high five. That's right. Thank you. The first piece of this functionality is already certified, and that's called Smart X. It's a AGBWS software add on, and it helps protect the pilots against runway excursions and wrong surface operations. So it reduces the risk of the likelihood of those type of incidents or accidents by providing the pilots an oral alert as well as text message. So, for example, runway excursion where a pilot comes in high, comes in fast, maybe they haven't configured their flaps for landing. You would get an alert at about a thousand feet above the ground, flaps, flaps. Another alert provided by Smart X is if they're too high on a standard approach, three degree glide path. If they're too high, you would get too high. If they're too fast, you would get too fast. These are general rule of thumb type of, you know, stable approach monitoring, and it provides the pilot alert. It also helps to reduce the likelihood of a wrong surface operation. When I say wrong surface, I mean taking off on a taxiway instead of a runway or trying to land on a taxiway instead of a runway. Caution on taxiway, on taxiway. At nighttime in poor visibility or even sometimes, honestly, during the daytime. They can mistakenly try to take off on a taxiway. The second piece is called Surface Alerts or Surf A, which Honeywell expects to get FAA certification in 2026. Traffic on runway. Now that one also is demonstrated today on the EGPWS as a software, but it also has to have the ADS-B in. It has to have that GPS position of the other aircraft, and it looks for a potential collision on the runway surface. If there's a potential collision on the runway surface less than 30 seconds, it will provide the pilot with an oral alert like traffic on runway. Traffic on runway. If there's two aircraft that are on the runway at the same time, but they're not coming at each other, they're both crossing or you're line up and wait and someone's crossing. It's not going to provide an oral alert to that. It would only provide an alert if you start taking off and someone else is on that runway and it predicts you're going to collide within 30 seconds. So would you say there's a wider prevalence of these? Are they growing? You know, are these very common scenarios? Yeah, so what I say, the near misses are getting nearer and nearer. If you look at the total number that the FAA tracks per year, total number about 1600, 1800, that is not necessarily increasing, but the number that are near misses. And so, you know, instead of tens of seconds, right, it's becoming less. So we see that around the world. Air traffic doubling about every 15 years. Not a lot of new runways are being built or airports are being built. And so if you just look at the density of operations as those are increasing, it only makes sense that the aircraft are getting nearer and nearer. ATC is having more aircraft to manage. I think it's important to add an additional layer of protection here. FAA is looking at it to add more displays in the tower. Unfortunately, those displays aren't as the X. They don't have oral alerts. Controller has to be looking at the display in order to detect kind of like an ADS-B in display in the cockpit. Yeah, that's great. But if the pilot's not looking at it, it's not going to help. And usually around the runway, pilots are eyes out and not, you know, so the oral alert is very important, whether that's SMART-X or SURF-A to get their attention. I'm proud of the safety work that we do here at Honeywell. I'm proud of the legacy of a company that invented AGPWS, weather radar, TCAS, so. So, yes, I think SURF-A is, you know, the next missing link, if you will, in terms of protection about runway safety.