EGPWS and augmented reality
With respect to EGPWS and the incident reported in the Roumors section I would like to pose a naive computer scientist's question.
Why isn't a virtual image of the landscape outside represented
on one of the screens in the cockpit based on the GPS position?
My feeling is that the 3D data for our world shoud be pretty accurate already or could become sufficiently accurate at least for the
dangerous airports.
In an A320 you could essentially place your laptop on the table and
connect it to a GPS receiver and would probably get a pretty good
image of where you are and where the terrain is.
I just mean to illustrate how easy it would be, not that it should be done
in that way.
A system like this would clearly contribute to situational awareness and should not be very expensive.
My question is if something like that is in preparation and why it has not already been introduced during the last 5-10 years.
The further development of this is to have a 3D flightpath displayed, which would eg make approaches to Innsbruck much easier (I have seen some
research on that at my old University).