Flight Management Systems (FMS)

Honeywell developed the first Flight Management System (FMS) in the 1970s with the introduction of the TERN-100, the first truly automatic FMS using external position sensors. Honeywell has since emerged as the world's leading supplier in this field for air transport, business, regional and military aircraft.

Flight management systems help the flight crew compute the most efficient flight profile and automatically navigate the aircraft. The computer continually monitors position information of the aircraft gathered from all of the navigation sensor systems and blends them into a single "best" position. That position is then used in other FMS functions for waypoint-to-waypoint "great circle" flight planning and automated implementation of the flight plan.

With today's FMS, a crew can instruct the system to fly the most economical flight profile or choose the fastest route to a destination. As the trip proceeds, the FMS tracks fuel-burn and winds and updates estimated flight time, automatically changing navigation and communication radio frequencies as needed.

The FMS is thus able to control the entire flight from takeoff all the way through to landing, by performing all the complex navigation calculations that the crew would otherwise have to do. Typical functions include determining waypoints, course intercepts, estimated time of arrival, holding patterns, altitude crossing restrictions, optimum holding speed and fuel-burn data.

By greatly reducing pilot workload, the FMS frees the crew to manage high-level cockpit tasks. For example: Instead of having to pore through detailed navigation charts to find appropriate alternate airports in case of bad weather, the FMS can run through all the possible "what-if" scenarios such as how much extra fuel will be burned if speed is increased by Mach 0.2.

All of these capabilities contribute to a more economical, fuel-efficient, timesaving and safety-enhancing flight.

Flight management systems for military aircraft are based on developments made for commercial air transport vehicles such as commercial airliners and include unique military capabilities such as air drop, refueling, and search and rescue patterns not found on commercial aircraft.