Future Trends for General Aviation In-Cockpit Weather Information Systems 2002-01-1545

One area of NASA's Aviation Safety Program involves investigation of the feasibility of advanced Aviation Weather Information Systems to reduce accident rates. An element of this program involves integrating weather information systems into the general aviation cockpit. Since the automotive and trucking industry currently use Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), this study investigated the possibility of applying similar systems in the cockpit of general aviation aircraft and examined three areas that support better understanding of this possibility. The first includes market activities in general ITS products. The second area involves a market research survey, to identify the user requirements for new in-cockpit information systems. The third area examines the historical growth patterns of GPS systems to estimate possible market acceptance of future information systems that have parallels with ITS in general aviation. In summary, this paper identifies product and market parallels between in-vehicle information systems and general aviation and indicates future trends in this product area.