Honeywell has successfully completed the first flight of its Honeywell Anthem integrated flight deck using a Pilatus PC-12 test aircraft. Although Honeywell Anthem has been in flight test for more than a year and has accumulated more than 120 hours of flight time, this flight was the first managed by the next-generation avionics. First announced in late 2021, Honeywell Anthem draws on the company's deep aerospace experience and marks Honeywell's first cloud-connected cockpit system that can be customised for virtually every type of aircraft, from passenger planes and business aircraft to defence, general aviation and advanced air-mobility (AAM) vehicles.

The PC-12 aircraft was flown using Honeywell Anthem's fully integrated flight deck, which includes the display system and processing platform. The one-hour flight over the Phoenix, Arizona area was flown by Ed Manning, pilot in command, and Bill Lee, co-pilot, and supported by Paul Carter, lead flight engineer, and Will Quinn, flight engineer.

Honeywell Anthem's core architectural system offers a 50 per cent reduction in size, weight and power and greater installation flexibility when compared to Honeywell's Primus Epic integrated avionics system, which is already one of the most advanced aircraft cockpits in the world.

“This is a historic milestone as Honeywell Anthem is poised to change the way aircraft are piloted,” says Jim Currier, president, electronic solutions, Honeywell Aerospace. “Throughout the flight, the pilot and crew tested various aspects of the modular and customisable system, and it performed exactly as designed. Honeywell Anthem is simple, smart and intuitive, and it takes little to no time to feel comfortable with it. Moving forward, flight tests on the PC-12 aircraft will focus on exercising the system in real-life operational scenarios that will provide critical feedback for robust final red-label designs.”

“Honeywell Anthem is breaking new ground in avionics design and the pilot-machine interface, with the goal of making pilots' jobs easier and safer and essentially allowing pilots to configure their own cockpit based on mission and phase of flight,” adds Ken Hurt, vice president, engineering, Honeywell Anthem, Honeywell Aerospace. “This flight is a clear demonstration of the maturity of the Honeywell Anthem system and positions us strongly on a path toward achieving Federal Aviation Administration certification.”

Honeywell Anthem is the sixth generation of avionics developed by Honeywell and the winner of the Good Design Award. Over the years, Honeywell has introduced several industry-leading innovations such as SmartView synthetic vision system (SVS), and Honeywell Anthem builds on that legacy with a new revolutionary flight deck that has an intuitive user interface, unprecedented situational awareness that improves safety, unparalleled connectivity and a modular and highly scalable design.