Sierra Nevada Works on New System to Help Pilots Fly in Limited Visibility

Sierra Nevada Corp. has been selected to advance to the third phase of a U.S. Army competition to develop a system that can help pilots operate in fog, dirt and other limited visibility conditions, National Defense reported Friday.

“We’ve always had a hard time flying in snow and flying in dirt,” Paul Bontrager, vice president for government relations at Sierra Nevada. “In Army aviation we’ve been waiting for this technology to mature, and it has.”

Bontrager said the company’s degraded visual environment pilotage system has cameras, light detection and ranging tool and radars to help pilots maintain situational awareness and could be integrated into the Army’s Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters.

The report said the company’s selection for the competition’s phase 3 came after it conducted an airborne test in 2015.