Sandel Avionics has introduced a revolutionary adaptive wire-strike avoidance feature called WireWatch, which will be implemented through the company’s advanced ST3400H HeliTAWS terrain avoidance system. Comprising a detailed database and a proactive alerting capability, WireWatch further enhances the operational safety that the TSO’d HeliTAWS brings to the cockpit by helping helicopter pilots avoid transmission lines and other such hard-to-see hazards.

“We see WireWatch as one of a series of important safety enhancements that HeliTAWS can provide for all kinds of helicopter operations,” said Gerry Block, Sandel’s CEO. “Just as HeliTAWS itself helps pilots avoid controlled flight into terrain, our WireWatch feature helps eliminate the hazard of near-invisible transmission lines by enabling helicopter crews to spot known wires,” he noted.

Sandel’s ST3400H HeliTAWS is a 3-ATI terrain safety system that uses Sandel’s proprietary TrueAlert™ adaptive algorithms to understand pilot intent and provide terrain alerting while virtually eliminating nuisance alerting, a problem which plagues competitive systems. With TrueAlert, pilots can safely take off, cruise, hover and land at off-airport locations without triggering nuisance alerts, while still receiving the established benefits of Class-A terrain and obstacle warnings during the entire flight. The system is completely automatic and does not require pilot management of the phase of flight.

Other benefits of HeliTAWS include its off-airport landing capability; high-resolution 3-D terrain display; Class A HTAWS functionality; and such growth features as NVIS compatibility and WireWatch. In addition to HEMS (helicopter emergency medical services), HeliTAWS is also ideally suited for such demanding missions as oil rig operations, tactical military support, airborne law enforcement and search & rescue.

Sandel Avionics, located in Vista, California, is a privately held company that provides compact integrated display systems for business aviation, air transport and regional, and rotary-wing aircraft. Recent successes include the company’s best-selling, turbine-class ST3400 TAWS and retrofit primary flight displays, and its new HeliTAWS™ is the helicopter industry’s first complete HTAWS solution. Learn more at www.sandel.com.