Once pilots get used to flying with a head-up display (HUD), they quickly appreciate the benefits of flying with an instrument panel’s worth of information depicted in their field of view and at the same time being able to look directly ahead at the view outside the aircraft. But certified HUD systems are expensive, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they take up valuable cockpit space as well. Thales (C10607) has developed a solution, the TopMax head-worn display, that puts a HUD into a monocular display that the pilot wears mounted on a headset. TopMax will cost about half the price of a conventional HUD, and it will be adaptable to any aircraft, especially smaller types that have no room for a HUD.

“It’s a real breakthrough,” said Thales head of marketing Richard Perrot. “The footprint within the aircraft is really light compared to a [traditional] HUD.” Thales has two versions of TopMax, one installed on a Bose active-noise-reduction headset and the other on a headband that the pilot wears with any type of headset.

TopMax consists of a main module with a display in front of one of the pilot’s eyes showing all the flight symbology, plus a camera for orientation purposes. The camera is pointed inside the cockpit, where it looks for stickers on the overhead panel so it knows the precise position of the pilot’s head. “Compared to other head-worn devices, which require a very heavy system for head-tracking positioning, this is the lightest system ever,” Perrot said.

An advantage of the TopMax head-worn display is that the pilot’s field of view is unlimited. A conventional HUD’s field of view is only straight ahead, but with TopMax, the pilot’s head can point in any direction, and the display could show other types of information. For example, looking down at the floor could pop up a terrain chart. Or looking out a side window could show a traffic display, and an EFB could pop up when looking at a side panel. “It’s really a big help for the pilot,” he said. “It increases pilot awareness dramatically.”

Like other HUD systems–Thales makes a conventional HUD for Airbus–TopMax will enable operators to fly to lower minimums on instrument approaches and use lower minimums for takeoff. Thales is planning to offer display of enhanced vision system (EVS) information on the head-worn display, and eventually synthetic vision (SVS) and combined vision (both EVS and SVS fused together). “Then we have a growth path for a 3-D flight play, waypoints display and a chart viewer,” Perrot said.

Thales has been flight testing TopMax in a Cessna/Reims F406 and Daher TBM 700. Pilots report no discomfort after flights of more than two hours, Perrot reported. Certification is planned for late 2017, followed by entry into service in late 2017 or early 2018.

“We’ve been very surprised by the response of the market,” he said. “We primarily thought that this product would be the perfect answer for business jets that cannot be equipped with HUD. This first assumption has been confirmed. However we got encouraging answers from people in the high-end [jet] market. This has features different than a conventional HUD. We’re thinking about having TopMax mixed with a [conventional] HUD on the captain’s side and TopMax on the copilot’s side. Another player in the high-end market is thinking about dual HUD plus TopMax for some special operations or approaches. Some features such as crosswind approaches, when you’re off axis, TopMax brings a benefit compared to a conventional HUD. The pilot can monitor the touchdown and trajectory to the runway even if off axis, by turning his head he can even can have a visual [depiction] of the runway.”

Here at NBAA 2015, Thales is running live demonstrations of TopMax. Visitors will be able to try on the TopMax HUD on a Bose headset and fly with it on a simulator while viewing TopMax flight symbology and displays of SVS, 3-D flight planning and waypoints, a chart viewer and other features.