Thales to Supply HUDs for A350

Thales was selected to supply the head-up display (HUD) for the Airbus A350 XWB, the company announced Wednesday. The HUD, either in a single or dual configuration, will be available as a customer option in the A350 XWB catalogue from the first aircraft in 2013. Thales said its HUD provides a platform for growth to support new features such as Enhanced Vision Systems (EVS) and potentially Surface Guidance System (SGS) and Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS). In this configuration, Thales said the HUD has been redesigned to increase head clearance to bring greater comfort to pilots and to embed the  graphical generation within the Display Units. The redesign, Thales said, reduces the weight of the system by about 35 pounds. "The HUD represents an important safety element for the pilot providing him with essential, intuitive and immediate information in terms of situational awareness during critical flight phases such as take-off and landing, especially in worldwide areas where the traffic growth is significant and can impact on the overall level of flight safety,” said Bertrand Zundel, head of Thales's Test pilots. Earlier this year, Thales was selected to provide the Interactive Control and Display Systems and the Air Data and Inertial Reference Unit for the new A350 XWB aircraft.