Was Boeing 747-400 ever retrofitted with HUD?

[vnangli]

Out of curiousity, I was searching for any articles or pieces of information regarding the 747-400 retrofit with HUDs? Didnt find any specific links. Here's is what I used "Boeing 747-400 retrofit HUD" for search parameters...

Any thoughts/experiences/history about this enhancement on the 747s??

[dhob]

Very unlikely. No room between window and glare shield.

[andmiz]

There's absolutely no headroom for a HUD.  Being a CAT3B autoland capable aircraft, what advantage of a HUD would you gain?

[vnangli]

There's absolutely no headroom for a HUD.  Being a CAT3B autoland capable aircraft, what advantage of a HUD would you gain?

Oh that was just a curious question. Lets say if the Pilot prefers to hand fly the final approach, would HUD help the pilot in anyways? Thats where this question crossed my mind...

[Will]

I cannot comment on the headroom in the cockpit, or on whether a HUD would fit in the 747. And I don't see how a HUD would add much value to airline or cargo ops.

But that said, a HUD might plausibly make it easier to carry out certain tasks in some special-use aircraft. Maybe a HUD would make it easier to drop retardant on forest fires, for example.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

As far as I know, the FAA allows aircraft with a HUD (and associated crew training) to fly instrument approaches to lower minima and probably takeoff as well (guessing here). It's not much but makes the difference between getting in or not in some cases. I think Alaska Air has HUDs and they do get in when everybody else goes elsewhere. Probably others do, too.

A bit like the microwave landing system at Heathrow. It was supposed to give BA a leg-up in fog. Don't know whether it worked that way.


Hoppie

[Hardy Heinlin]

About 20 years ago I did some sessions on a CRJ (Canadair Regional Jet) simulator in Berlin with a Lufthansa Cityline crew. The CRJ was fitted with a HUD. The HUD approach and landing was part of the training program, but I can't remember whether the weather setting was CAT II or III.


|-|ardy

[simonijs]

We may have been in the same simulator: I was there in June 2015 with a Cityline crew. Their CRJ's have a HUD on the captain's side only and I witnessed one - manually flown - CAT-IIIa approach down to DH (50 ft), followed by a smooth landing. An additional monitor at the instructor's station showed what was presented to the captain's HUD and allowed me to follow the entire approach.

Regards,
S.

[the mad hatter]

yes     airforce  one    i looked into doing it but gave up

[vnangli]

I am not trying to oversimplify or challenging the need of the HUD or the space available in the overhead panel for the HUD screen to swing...But was curious if an option like this would have been evaluated, if not knocked down to be used...

https://goodyday.com/products/hudway-drive-hud-display?variant=32611958587474&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&gclid=Cj0KCQjwjer4BRCZARIsABK4QeVZ977xkKFRWA45aK7lzC3J6Dmp6NfeBLEQnuwAa8DEtEU_escj2zwaAl2DEALw_wcB

I have been practicing to improve my landing accuracies while I am running PSX. I adopted to the layouts our friend "@Will" shared. However, I have been busy scanning the PFD and switching back to the Visual of Runway. That activity led to this curious question....

[Hardy Heinlin]

To practise the mental link between instrument scanning and finger muscles you may try this situation (CAT II landing with MCP failure):

03 Approach 014 - Casablanca - CAT II manual.situ

This is one of my favourite situ files. There is a bit more visual brain activity required because of the missing heading bug. When you can master this, everything else will be pretty easy :-)

Zoom in your PFD, ignore the windshield view, just look at the big PFD and make very subtle corrections with your yoke and throttles. With some practise it's possible to stay perfectly on the path. And when the runway appears at 50 ft, all you have to do is flare. Look at the PFD and slowly raise the nose by 2° (you can't use the scenery horizon for this due to the fog) while retarding the throttles. During the flare, just use the runway view for your rudder control, not for elevator control. For elevator control use the PFD.


|-|ardy

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

And you don't need to flip between instruments and outside view. Basically you only look outside once -- at DH. Decide! Look outside. Lights? Land. No lights? TO/GA (and land anyway, but briefly)...


Hoppie