The Boeing Company

Michael L Konicke

James E Veitengruber

C Edward Wischmeyer

James G Loesch

A surface illumination system is provided that includes a lighting system mounted upon a vehicle body, such as an aircraft body. The lighting system is adapted to illuminate the surface beneath and around the periphery of the aircraft. For example, the lighting system is preferably adapted to illuminate the surface beneath at least one of the tail and distal ends of the wings. A further embodiment of the lighting system is adapted to illuminate the surface in a non-static manner. By increasing the illumination about the periphery of the aircraft, the surface illumination system draws increased attention to the aircraft and provides ground vehicles, taxiing aircraft, and landing aircraft advanced warning of the presence and position of obstacle aircraft on the ground, thereby reducing the possibility of collisions.

Surface illumination system of an aircraft and like vehicles

An integrated primary flight display apparatus for an aircraft provides coordinated information with minimum eye scan distances. Various cathode ray tube generated presentations are centered toward a common electronic attitude director indicator having indicia thereadjacent and pointers centrally directed. A moving altitude scale is utilized with a fixed vertical speed scale employed to select the correct vertical speed for leveling off at a given altitude. An arcuate shaped heading indication is expanded in angular extent to achieve enhanced sensitivity.

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Snohomish, WA, United States of America

Michael L Konicke