The development of the helicopter pilot assistance system, PILAS, came to a successful conclusion when the results were presented at the Berlin Air Show in late May 2008.

The German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology launched the Pilot Assistance System (PILAS) project in 2003 as part of its aeronautical research program. The project brought together the Eurocopter Group and other manufacturers, along with research institutes and universities. The goal of PILAS was to develop a system that would provide assistance to pilots in critical flight phases and improve helicopter maneuverability.

Pilot Assistance in Critical Flight Phases
PILAS’ main function during flight is to spot and warn pilots of any risks, and to suggest suitable measures for managing these risks and averting any danger. This new system improves helicopter safety and also provides greater mission flexibility. PILAS also has automatic procedures incorporated in the automatic mission planning system that reduce the helicopter’s noise footprint during the approach phase.

Simplified Trajectory and Mission Planning
A fully-automatic system plans the trajectories section by section as soon as the mission order is received. Every type of available information is taken into account, including weather conditions, relief and air traffic. “The flight trajectory is shown on one of two high-resolution screens, and the pilot can validate or reject this trajectory simply by pressing a key,” explains Stefan Haisch, the mission systems & research project manager at Eurocopter. The pilot can take over at any moment, or allow the assistance system to fly the helicopter so that he or she can concentrate on other more pressing tasks (during extreme weather conditions, for example) or particularly demanding missions. The four-axis autopilot (three spatial axes plus the time coordinate), which was specially developed for this project, will even fly the entire programmed trajectory in automatic mode. Stefan Haisch is already looking towards the future: “In the next steps, we will be adding new functionalities to the system, and Franco-German teams are going to integrate a maximum number of PILAS modules and assemblies into our standard production activities.”