Combining radio altimeter information with GPS maps, Mr. Bateman’s caution machine turned into a sublime but easy option to the vexing downside of controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) — the aviation time period for when pilots crash after changing into disoriented at midnight, misreading tools or veering off flight paths.
Mr. Bateman’s machine emits loud warnings, beginning with “CAUTION TERRAIN, CAUTION TERRAIN,” adopted by means of the extra dire “PULL UP, PULL UP.”
Before Mr. Bateman’s invention was once offered within the Seventies, such incidents have been the main reason behind dying from flying. In nations that experience mandated the era, together with the United States, the ones sorts of crashes had been just about eradicated.
“It’s accepted within the industry that Don has probably saved more lives than any single person in the history of aviation,” Bill Voss, then the manager government of the Flight Safety Foundation, informed the Seattle Times in 2012.
President Barack Obama awarded Mr. Bateman the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2011 “for developing and championing critical flight-safety sensors now used by aircraft worldwide.”
Mr. Bateman first turned into concerned with CFITs whilst running for a predecessor corporate to Honeywell within the Nineteen Sixties.
Back then, there was once about one such crash a month within the United States. Mr. Bateman’s resolution was once known as the “ground proximity warning system.” It used radio altimeter information to provide pilots audible warnings about 15 seconds prior to crisis.
After 92 other people have been killed in 1974 on a TWA 727 that crashed into Mount Weather, Va., a Federal Aviation Authority investigation prompt {that a} floor proximity caution would possibly have prevented the incident. The company ordered that each one air service airplane set up the machine.
While crashes into mountains and different hindrances dropped precipitously, the caution machine was once restricted in that it would handiest measure what was once taking place underneath the airplane, now not in entrance of it. The caution window was once additionally small.
Working with a crew of engineers, Mr. Bateman up to date the machine with GPS information, together with in the past unseen maps of Europe and Asia made by means of Russian scientists that Honeywell obtained following the cave in of the (*91*) Union. The up to date era was once additionally able to issuing warnings two mins prior to a crash.
“Knowing the position of the airplane, we could actually project the flight path that the airplane is on towards that terrain,” Mr. Bateman mentioned in an interview with the National Science and Technology Medals Foundation. “We would find an accident and go fly it and see if we could duplicate the flight path and actually get a warning and see if it was adequate in time to pull up.”
In a 2015 article in HindSight, an aviation protection mag, Mr. Bateman recounted a number of crashes the machine prevented, together with a airplane looking to keep away from clouds on strategy to touchdown in Australia that “inadvertently entered into a high rate of descent near the ground.” The machine generated a number of warnings, and the pilots recovered prior to crashing.
Mr. Bateman additionally described an incident during which a caution was once now not heeded on an indication flight of a brand new jet in Indonesia.
“The pilot, unaware of the local terrain, ignored 38 seconds of [warnings],” Mr. Bateman wrote, and “switched the equipment off, believing that there was a database error.”
The airplane hit the aspect of a mountain.
Charles Donald Bateman was once born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on March 8, 1932. His father repaired watches, and his mom was once a homemaker.
Donnie, as he was once identified rising up, first turned into concerned with airplane protection when he was once 8. In college someday, he regarded out the window and noticed two planes hit the bottom after colliding within the air.
He sneaked out of faculty with a pal to take a look at the particles — and located a frightening tangle of our bodies amid the crash.
His instructor punished them for leaving early by means of ordering them to put in writing a record about what they noticed. “You sure can’t spell,” his instructor informed him, studying the account. “You’re going to be an engineer.”
Mr. Bateman studied electric engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, graduating in 1956. He labored at Boeing for 2 years prior to becoming a member of United Control, which in the end merged into Honeywell. Mr. Bateman retired from the corporate in 2016.
His marriage to Joan Berney resulted in divorce. In 1981, he married Mary Contreras.
In addition to his spouse, and their daughter Katherine, of Bellevue, Wash., survivors come with their son, Patrick Bateman of Seattle; two kids from his first marriage, Wendy Bastian of Sarasota, Fla., and Greg Bateman of Redmond, Wash.; 8 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Mr. Bateman’s kids recall that their father, with out fail, would factor a caution after they landed in combination on flights at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
“Now we’re in the real risky part of our journey,” he’d say. “Getting into the car and driving on the freeway.”