Just wondering out loud. I have just purchased a new car and it has a heads up display in it, never had anything like this in the past so I thought a novelty, but the more I drive it the easier I find the driving, as I do not have to take my eyes of the road to check speed and or adjust the cruise etc,
So this is my question ... If I had designed a HUD that would suit the RW would there be interest from the RW community, i.e. would they sell. I say this as I have an electronics engineer who has just purchased a 3D printer so he could design the HUD and then make the housing for it to fit in, I know you can already buy HUDs for cars, I would expect the RW HUD to display on the windscreen and be adjustable as to where on the windscreen and it would display the important instruments, RRPM, FUEL, ASI, VSI,  and maybe leds, (red green yellow) for oil temp, H2O temp etc. Just a thought??

personally i would find this as a distraction.
my eyes are outside and mostly rely on flying by senses with occasional scan of the instruments to assure everything is ok. i see where you are coming from with it making a scan nicer, but i like to fly in all sorts of lighting conditions and with rain on the windscreen, one less thing in the windscreen would be for the better,

the only reason i like the compass front and center is as a reference for centerline trim and pitch attitude against the horizon.

i'm also a steam gauge guy all the way! so maybe an MGL ipad flyer will be a sure buy in!

(06-21-2026, 05:09 AM)Lyle Swallows Wrote: personally i would find this as a distraction.
my eyes are outside and mostly rely on flying by senses with occasional scan of the instruments to assure everything is ok. i see where you are coming from with it making a scan nicer, but i like to fly in all sorts of lighting conditions and with rain on the windscreen, one less thing in the windscreen would be for the better,

the only reason i like the compass front and center is as a reference for centerline trim and pitch attitude against the horizon.

i'm also a steam gauge guy all the way! so maybe an MGL ipad flyer will be a sure buy in!

Yeah, I get where you're coming from I thought the same with the new car, a second hand car for us so I had never driven with the HUD and I thought what waste but now with the adaptive cruise control I can keep my eyes outside all the time and I get to see the scenery as well, so now I am sold on it. That's not to say it would A be possible or B do we want it, It is ATM just a thought bubble as I do know who could design it and make it. I worked with him with the Delta D2 project with a glass cockpit before a glass cockpit even existed.

I'm with Graeme on this.   As far as practical use.   I have no idea of the technology involved.   However, like Graeme, the first car I had with an HUD was several years ago and it seemed kind of gimmicky to me at first.   I rarely used it, found it mildly annoying.   The data displayed was minimal.    But over the years, and a new car, I've changed my mind.   The Hud on my current car displays all the critical information.   I rarely ever look at my old gauges on the dash.

I'm also with Lyle on the 'eyes outside with occasional scans' when it comes to helicopter/vfr flying.  So if a Hud displayed enough of the critical information without being distracting, I'd think people would like it after they got used to it.   Head inside the cockpit would be left to changing radio frequencies, and startup and shutdown.

with the dwindling number of recreational airplanes around I would imagine the market of interested users would be very small. But I think it would be kinda cool and I'd use a good one if I had a flying aircraft and could afford it.

A helmet mounted HUD would be the best.  $$$  IMO Helicopter flying requires moving your scan around much more than our fixed wing counterparts and automobile applications.

(06-23-2026, 02:00 PM)Tim Morris Wrote: A helmet mounted HUD would be the best.  $$$  IMO Helicopter flying requires moving your scan around much more than our fixed wing counterparts and automobile applications.

Hi @Tim Morris I disagree, with military aviation I can see the helmet HUD being a big advantage, but for recreational flying I would prefer to look outside as much as possible so with critical data on display all the time in one spot on the windscreen then I get to enjoy the passing scenery without compromising safety, or flight awareness, and the HUD will be displayed inside the windscreen so not affected by rain and to be serious, if you are flying in rain, better check the erosion on the blades