Barco has introduced a new 12-inch primary flight display designed for business jet cockpits. Weighing only 4.5 pounds (the lightest in its class, the company claims), the DU-1200 was tailor-made for Honeywell’s upgraded Apex cockpit suite and is slated to enter service next year.

“For the design of this unit, we considered weight reduction in every step of the design process,” said Brecht Baert, product manager for avionics. “We’ve taken every component and evaluated how we could make it lighter. It became a special philosophy that made us re-evaluate a number of components that we would never have considered changing otherwise. The result was so significant that it far exceeded our initial expectations.”

According to Barco, Honeywell asked the company to design the lightest 12-inch display possible without compromising on image quality and reliability. The DU-1200, a variant of the Barco FDU-2108, is about half the weight of its predecessor. The DU-1200 will use Honeywell’s proprietary fiber channel interface.

“The lessons learned in the development of the DU-1200 will be used for the design of all future Barco cockpit displays,” Baert added.