Honeywell Acquires HUD Assets from Saab

Honeywell agreed to acquire Saab’s HUD assets for use with its flight decks. [Courtesy: Honeywell]

Honeywell (NASDAQ: HON) said it has agreed to acquire the heads-up display, or HUD, assets of the Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab for use in a range of its avionics products.

Under the agreement, Saab will work with Honeywell to develop and strengthen its HUD product line. HUDs help increase pilots’ situational awareness, especially when flying at night or in difficult weather conditions. Honeywell said the systems also help to boost safety, fuel efficiency, and on-time performance.

The company said it will add the HUD systems to its new Anthem flight deck and also will make the system available for its Primus Epic flight decks and as a stand-alone retrofit.

“Heads-up displays are an essential offering for the aviation industry and have been known to reduce pilot workload, increase situational awareness, improve access to airports with enhanced flight vision system and enhance safety,” said Vipul Gupta, vice president and general manager for avionics at Honeywell Aerospace. “The addition of HUDs as part of our wider avionics offerings will provide our customers in business aviation, air transport, and defense segments a great safety tool that can be particularly useful during takeoff and landing, which are typically the most crucial parts of any flight.”

Honeywell said the addition of HUD capability to its flight decks enables the company to offer its customers a “harmonized” cockpit. The system allows pilots to remain “head up and eyes out,” focusing on their surroundings instead of looking down at the panel.

“Saab believes that this agreement further establishes Saab and Honeywell as long-term partners and increases greater market opportunities,” says Carl-Johan Bergholm, senior vice president and head of Saab business area Surveillance.

Earlier this year Honeywell competed the first flight using the Anthem flight deck in its Pilatus PC-12 test aircraft. The transaction is subject to closing conditions, including the accomplishment of certain development milestones, the companies said.

Editor's note: This story originally appeared on flyingmang.com.

anthem head up display honeywell HUD primus saab

Amy WilderAuthor

Amy Wilder fell in love with airplanes at age 8 when her brother-in-law took her up in a Cessna 172. Pretty soon, Amy’s bedroom walls were covered with images of vintage airplanes and she was convinced she’d be a bush pilot in Alaska one day. She became a journalist instead, which is also somewhat impractical—but with fewer bears. Now she’s preparing to be a lifelong student of the art of flying.