FAA fines Boeing $20 million for installing unverified equipment on 737s

[Elderberry]

American Military News  March 09, 2020 The Seattle Times - Dominic Gates

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday announced that it will fine Boeing $19.7 million for installing heads-up displays in the cockpits of 791 aircraft that were not certified as compatible with sensors on the aircraft.

The heads-up displays are optional equipment — tinted pieces of glass just above the pilot’s eye level that display key data such as airspeed and altitude.

They allow the pilot to read the data without looking down at the instrument panel. The data is fed to the display from standard sensors on the airplane’s exterior, such as the altimeter and the angle of attack sensor.

However, only specific sensors are tested and approved as compatible with the heads-up display.

Between June 2015 and March 2019, the FAA said Boeing installed the heads-up displays, made by Rockwell Collins, on 618 Boeing 737 NG aircraft and 173 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft with sensors that were not listed as compatible.

More: https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/03/faa-fines-boeing-20-million-for-installing-unverified-equipment-on-737s/

[PeteS in CA]

Traditional HUDs such as used in late 70s and early 80s fighter aircraft used a CRT, optics that focused the light to "infinity" (so the pilot could read the display when his/her eyes were focused to long distance), and a pane (or double pane) of partially reflective glass (to reflect the display to the pilot but allow him/her to see through it easily). The partially reflective glass is called a "combiner", and a double-pane combiner gives a wider viewing angle for the pilot; it also made more precise optics a necessity so as to avoid the pilot seeing a double image. The original F-14 HUD used the windscreen as the combiner.

The A-10 had (has?) a "night filter", basically a sheet of red cellophane that was drawn across the top of the optics. This preserved the pilot's night vision and reduced the display's visibility to other (= enemy) planes and observers.

In the case of the Boeing 737 HUDs, it sounds like Boeing didn't cross all the right T's and dot all the right I's. Like, I think, Donald Douglas Sr. of Douglas Aircraft said decades ago, "When the weight of the paper equals the weight of the plane, the plane will fly."