Honeywell brought its company-owned PC-12 testbed aircraft with the Honeywell Anthem avionics suite to EAA AirVenture 2023 in Oshkosh. The test aircraft has completed the Anthem suite employs connectivity, a smart and intuitive pilot interface, advanced safety features, and a flexible and scalable architecture. The first applications of Anthem are the seven-seat Lilium Jet and five-seat Vertical Aerospace VA-X4 electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing air taxis.
Connectivity through the cloud benefits pilots in several ways, from dramatically reducing pre-flight preparation by uploading flight plans. Honeywell Anthem also enables running third-party applications and websites side-by-side for additional information and insights. The connectivity features also enable retrieving information on fleet location, aircraft use, and data analytics from anywhere.
Pilots can enable smart and intuitive configurations to put the information they use the most at their fingertips. The primary flight display, navigation maps, chats, and radio controls can be configured and set as a pilot’s preference on any display. The easy-to-learn, next-generation interface has touch controls and smart guidance, enabling a pilot to master the system quickly.
Advanced safety features include the Honeywell conformal Synthetic Vision System, allowing pilots to look at the display as if looking out the window. The Anthem system integrates technologies and features that provide situational awareness and help ease flight, navigation, and communication requirements.
The Honeywell Anthem suite is flexible and scalable, built to be “future-proof” with connectivity, and designed to advance with future technologies. Customization options are available to aircraft OEMs and accelerate getting new aircraft to market faster. The Anthem suite can be used across various platforms, irrespective of aircraft size.
The Bottom Line: Garmin’s G3000 system for high-performance general aviation aircraft will have a strong new competitor in the Honeywell Anthem system. By focusing on connectivity and being easy and intuitive to use, Honeywell leveraged its design team to create a system with the ease of use of a mobile phone application. Their goal is to maintain the best characteristics of traditional avionics suites while improving their shortcomings. After extensive field interviews with pilots, the design team discovered that pilots wanted less-crowded displays, easier uploading of information, and the ability to customize the cockpit based on their preferences, while still looking familiar. It appears Honeywell has succeeded in that quest with the Anthem avionics suite.
