Hognose Goes Up In Smoke To Prove A Point

by Aero-News Senior Correspondent Kevin R.C. "Hognose" O'Brien

Walking through NBAA, you can encounter almost anything. So when I saw some kind of sawn-off jet cockpit, I didn't think anything of it. Three hot young ladies in 1960s stewardess suits -- check. Forty-foot tiltrotor mockup -- check. Order sheet for specing out an Airbus 380 bizjet -- check. Sawn-off jet pit. Check.

Yawn. Until the video playing on a screen attached to it caught my eye.

The video showed a similar unit full of smoke, and said that this company's gadget could let a pilot save a plane despite a "continuous smoke event" -- one in which the pilot can't clear the smoke out of the aircraft. The system in question was called the EVAS -- Emergency Vision Assurance System -- an acronym that spells "SAVE" backwards. EVAS is developed by the VisionSafe Corporation of Hawaii, but marketed by EVAS Worldwide of New Jersey.

The potential of the EVAS, assuming it works, is clear.  A number of transport aircraft have crashed in circumstances suggesting that smoke in the cockpit was a factor. Masks and hoods can protect the pilots from inhalation of carbon monoxide and other toxic fumes; but even with a mask on, opaque smoke can make it impossible to fly the plane to a safe emergency landing.

And airplane-fire smoke is a nasty variety, often produced by electrical fires and swirling, black, and opaque. It's full of particulate matter. The simulator, of course, uses a non-toxic "smoke" -- the "fog" used in discos, apparently -- and it's not quite as opaque as the smoke that would come from an inflight fire.

"But it will be dark enough," EVAS Mobile Demonstration Technician Ryan Randolph promised, waving me into the left seat. I knew I had to try it, but I was skeptical. It looked a little like a gimmick. But I was willing to give it a chance, so I stepped into the cockpit and masked up. Randolph closed the door behind me.

In a real fire or inflight smoke situation, the first action the pilots take should be to mask up. Long before flame from a fire threatens a flight crew, toxins in the smoke would render them unconscious -- and an unconscious crew makes for poor CRM and aeronautical decision-making.

The EVAS is normally contained in a package behind the crew seats. It can be fixed to the seat by STC, or carried on by the pilots and simply stowed back there, depending on application; the container is a grey-black box about the size and heft of a ream of paper.

Each EVAS is individually fitted to a type, and they differ left from right seats; each pilot uses the one from behind his own seat. Reacting to smoke in the cockpit, pilots, once masked, would remove the EVAS from its container, and place it on the glare shield. Out of its "shell," the EVAS is a white plastic baglike device, with a tab labeled PULL TO ACTIVATE on the top. Following that simple instruction inflates the unit.

The EVAS contains a battery, fan, and filter. It sucks in polluted air, filters it, and stuffs it into an air bag made mostly of clear plastic. Excess air vents back into the cockpit. According to information from EVAS Worldwide, the unit inflates in 15-20 seconds.

The air bag butts up against the windshield on one side, and the pilot places the faceplate of his oxygen mask up against the other.

In the demonstrator, the EVAS is already deployed (once one is deployed, even for training, only the manufacturer can repack it properly).

Inside the cockpit, a little smoke boiled out from under the copilot's panel. Soon it was a lot of smoke. Soon I couldn't see the copilot's panel. Or his seat. Or, for that matter, my hand in front of my face.

I pressed the faceplate of the oxygen mask to the EVAS and let out a yelp of surprise. "I can see!" It wasn't quite the revelation of the blind boy in Tommy, but my skepticism parted like, well, the EVAS parted the fog.

I could see the Sacred Six. I could see out the windscreen. I couldn't see throttles, engine instruments, or flap and gear indicators, all things you like to set eyes on in your landing checklist. I couldn't see nav instruments, apart from the gyrocompass. But I could see enough to fly the plane visually or by instruments, to follow vectors, and to get the machine on the ground.

Which is a heck of a lot more that was possible without the EVAS.

Demonstration over, they vented some of the fog and let me out. A fireman quickly arrived to see what the smoke rising from the simulator was about; he was relieved that in this one case, where there was smoke, there was no fire.

EVAS Worldwide's Randolph reluctantly entered the gas chamber and did a turn so I could snap more photos. He'd done it enough that the novelty was gone. After I told the other guys about it, Rob Finfrock went down and tried it. EVAS Worldwide brings this gadget to every NBAA (it's the only show they attend; otherwise, the unit is used for training) every year.

In some ways the EVAS still seems like a gimmick. It has its field of view limitations, as noted above. I think that donning the mask and deploying the EVAS by touch in a smoky cockpit would be very difficult under the pressure of an inflight emergency. And when you get on the ground, it doesn't help you out of the plane. But I can't deny that it did what it's advertised to do.

Would it have changed the outcome of Swissair Flight 111? The company says, maybe, and a read of the transcript (available here) indicates, "maybe" may be as much as we can tell. It would have helped, it would have given them a fighting chance when an entertainment system malfunctioned. Instead, the plane plunged into the sea off Halifax, taking the airline, ultimately, to the bottom with its doomed passengers and crew.

Factory reps were quick to admit the EVAS's limitations. In the ValuJet crash in the Everglades, for instance, the fire was so hot that control continuity was lost. But our toolbox for the terrifying event of inflight fire is drearily empty, and so this tool ought to be welcomed.

As a piece of STC'd safety equipment, it's not outrageously expensive for the bizjet market, starting at about $14,000 a seat. And EVAS Worldwide has an impressive set of operators that have adopted EVAS for some of all of their fleets -- like AIG Aviation, the FAA, NetJets, the RAAF, and Xerox, to name a few (a complete list is on the website).

EVAS is STC'd in scores, maybe hundreds, of types, from the 767 on down, and the company is always working on more installations.

Training is essential to the proper use of the EVAS (remember, the one in the NBAA demonstrator was already deployed). Training is available from EVAS Worldwide, from FlightSafety in cooperation with EVAS Worldwide, or through a self-training syllabus for 121 and 135 operations and flight departments (which can be downloaded from the website).

You'll be able to experience the EVAS demonstrator at NBAA 2006, next September. Nose and Rob give it two thumbs up.

FMI: www.EVASworldwide.com