Redundant avionics for critical flight instruments

Abstract

Redundant avionics for flight instruments: a plurality of aircraft flight data sensors, which provide data that are normally displayed on indicators in the cockpit, are transmitted to two independent computers. Each computer is associated with and creates images representative of data sensed by the sensors on a respective projected image display creation device which is in the form of a liquid crystal display, for example. Associated illumination sources and one common or two respective sets of optics project the images from each image creation device on a new screen. The image creation device and the optics would cause the image representative of data from the same sensor to be projected to the same location on the screen regardless of which computer and image creation device provided and projected the image. The computers are independently operable for selectively causing the display of information corresponding to data received from none, some or all of the sensors. For example, the computers are operable so that one display device will display information corresponding to data received from some of the sensors and the other display device will display information corresponding to data received from other sensors and the computers are operable so that each computer may cause display of information based on all of the sensors, as required.