This is my idea of what the perfect avionics would look like, and I have this running perfectly on my Macintosh now, connected the the X-1 aircraft in X-Plane... research on getting this into FLIGHT hardware is in process now.
You are looking at 3 MFD's. Any MFD can go into any mode. This way, in display can fail with zero loss of funtionality, and zero learning-curve. THERE IS NO REVERSIONARY MODE. If you lose any display (or two) just use the others. Since any display can gfo into any mode, you still have 100% of your avionics power and user interface with zero change in functionality.. you are simply swapping modes on one or two screens instead of three screens.
Each MFD can be in PFD, flight-plan, map, system, or infra-red camera display mode, so the copilot could fly a PFD while the pilot plays with the map or flight-plan... or vice-veras, if desired. No chaning mode or system failure on one side of the airplane effects the other side. Like almost everything in this project, all of this is in exact opposition to the way things work in the Eclipse. Notice the strange white shape on the map.. that is the gliding-range from the current altitude, adjusted for wind and terrain... go to any airport inside that ring if the engine stops.
Everthing is touch-screen, so there will be almost no knobs or buttons in the cockpit... and since all 3 touch-screens can do any function in the plane, you effectively have 3 of almost every flight control in the airplane.. without a single button or knbob being present.
Using this touch-screen and PFD layout, there is very little to learn, a huge amount of power in the cockpit, and the failure of any one or two components has almost no impact on the flight.. since they are all identical and multi-functional... if one touch-screen fails, just use the other! No functionality is lost, and no reversionary-modes need to be learned. We get this by designing the system so that any ONE display does WHATEVER you need right from the outset.
The system will have dual-GPS-WAAS, duel inertial-nav backup, infrared camera to see in the dark, highway-in-the-sky hoops to fly through, and an on-board black box that even records the output from the infrared video camera... this will allow the black box to actually show us what the pilot saw (even in the dark) after an accident.
Anyway, I wrote this, it is the best avionics system in the world by far, I am researching hardware to move it from Macintosh to cockpit now, and it will go in the airplane.
Below, we see terrain (note the hi-detail near the airplane) the gliding range (hagged white line around the the plane), engine page, and on the PFD, synthetic vision with traffic icons shown in 3-D.
Now for navigation... we entered the weights at right, and got the take-off and landing distance, weight and balance, fuel and time burn enroute, and hoops to take us where we are going, displayed on the MFD and PFD, in 3-D.
Note the ooutput from the infrared camera at right... note that I super-impose a HUD over it on a PFD so it can be used for primary guidance... letting you see in the dark! TAWS displays on the map and PFD, in a color that reminds you what color the ground will be if your blood is spilt on it by flying too low.
My TAWS (terrain awereneszs warning system) works differently that other systems. My system is pretty simple: It projects your path 60 seconds ahead. If you are interesecting the ground or an obstacle at anything less than a reasonable landing on a runway in that next 60 seconds, it screams out, giving the time until impact.
Note that this appeas on both the synthetic vision and infrared PFD, to accompany the aural warning.
OK anothre TAWS shot. The ground will run red with your blood if you do not pay attention to what the airplane is telling you.
And you can configure this system to work with any airplane.. every engine and flight indication can be customized by the user to work with any experimental airplane. We hope to have this stuff flying and selling in the experimental market by early 2011.