Apex cockpit to take Extra 500 to new heights

by Stephen Pope

May 4, 2004 - Extra Aircraft has selected Honeywell’s Apex integrated cockpit as the standard avionics package in the Extra EA-500 turboprop single.

The Apex system in the German-built turboprop will include a suite of digital communication and navigation radios, a flight management system, digital autopilot, two 10.4-inch active-matrix LCDs, mode-S transponder, EICAS, traffic advisory system, enhanced ground proximity warning system and dual-channel air-data attitude heading reference system (ADAHRS).

Options will include an additional display, TCAS in place of TAS, weather radar, radio altimeter, DME, ADF and Honeywell’s Flight Information Services for uploading weather information in flight.

The Extra EA-500 is the turboprop variant of the piston Extra 400. A pressurized six-place, all-composite airplane built by Extra Flugzeugbau in Hunxe, Germany, it is powered by a 450-shp Rolls-Royce 250-B17F2 turboprop. It has a range of 1,600 nm and a 225-knot max cruise speed. According to the manufacturer, the airplane will be available early next year with Honeywell EFS 40 CRT displays and with the Apex cockpit beginning in 2006.

The purchase price of the EA-500 is $1.545 million, which includes training for one pilot. The company estimates that Extra currently has the capacity to produce 60 EA-500s per year. Beginning next year, annual production is estimated to be 18 to 20 aircraft. The EA-500 will be sold through a network of factory-authorized representatives in North America and Europe.

The Apex cockpit is Honeywell’s latest integrated avionics system for general aviation. It uses the digital engine operating system (DEOS) originally designed for Primus Epic, Honeywell’s top-of-the-line cockpit system for business jets, regional airliners and helicopters. Intended for turboprops and light jets, the Apex cockpit features a number of new technologies designed to enhance safety and ease pilot workload.

For example, visual-reference technology called “visual cueing and control” in Apex will eventually provide an “out the window” type picture of the horizon and terrain on the primary display. The full complement of Apex features won’t be available for at least a few more years, but the first systems certified will be upgradeable through software modifications as new technologies are developed by Honeywell.

With the Apex visual-cueing system, the traditional blue-over-brown attitude indicator will be replaced with an artificial sky and terrain that is very similar to a video-game view of the world. Significant ground features, such as runways, appear in the picture exactly where they would appear if the pilot were looking at them out the windscreen. Honeywell believes this will enhance safety by giving pilots a real-time mental picture of the aircraft’s position.

In the background, Apex will use an ADAHRS that Honeywell is designing specifically for Apex. It will include six micro-eletromechanical sensors (MEMS) in place of spinning gyros and accelerometers. Accuracy of the ADHRS will be so good, said Honeywell, that it will not require updates from a GPS receiver. Because it has no moving parts, the life expectancy of the ADHRS is around 8,000 hours, about eight times the lifespan of gyros currently installed in light airplanes.