In our A320 Simulator Software we have build the Head-Up Display (HUD) for both the Captain as well as the First Officer side.
It is a transparent display that presents the same data as the Primary Flight Display (PFD), but visible to the pilots without having to look away from their outside scenery viewpoint.
The HUD is a stand-alone application that runs on Windows PC and communicates over the LAN network with the A320 Simulator core software.
It uses grey scale graphics, with reverse video and haloing for highlighting. For better readability, the transparency level can be changed and adjusted to the amount of ambient light.
The HUD permanently displays the Flight Path Vector (FPV) so that pilots have an immediate and continuous assessment of the airplane trajectory in poor visibility weather conditions.
Below you see the HUD in front of Google Earth that is connected to our A320 Simulator and used for displaying the scenery. The video shows the pilot HUD view during a takeoff from EBBR (Brussels) on runway 25L. After takeoff the Autopilot is then engaged and a turn is initiated to fly a down leg at 3000 Feet, in preparation for landing at the same runway.
After flying the downwind leg, on the second video below you see the view through the HUD of landing at EBBR 25L. First a turn is initiated to align with the runway and start the final approach. Then the FCU ILS button is pushed to select the display of ILS data on the HUD. The speed is stepwise being lowered while each time extending the flaps step by step. The Localizer (LOC) capture is engaged and thereafter also the Glideslope (G/S) capture. After a smooth 3 degree decent on the Glideslope the landing gear is extended and the runway comes in sight. Finally the Autopilot initiates the Land mode, followed by the Flare mode.
Synthetic Runway
Below you see an already more advanced version of the A320 Simulator HUD. In this version the synthetic runway is drawn in perspective together with an extended runway centerline. Also the Groundspeed and braking/deceleration information during Roll Out have been implemented. Finally also some of the information reduction and declutter have been implemented. In the below video the background scenery is FSX and the landing is at EHAM 18C.
As you could see in previous videos, already a lot of the features of the real HUD have been implemented.
Below you see a video of the real HUD in an Airbus A319 landing at ENBR (Bergen). We still have some software coding to do... Leave a comment for every not yet implemented feature that you can find 🙂