Safety
Hughes App Highlights Slacklines in Route Planning
Free service helps pilots evaluate risk before flight
Hughes Aerospace app highlights slacklines
The Hughes Aerospace app highlights slacklines to help pilots evaluate risk during preflight planning.

Hughes Aerospace has added Slackline Awareness to its Hughes Flight Intelligence platform, which is available in the free Hughes Apple iOS app. It provides access to more than 7,000 known and reported slackline locations worldwide to help pilots evaluate slackline risks during preflight planning and moving-map route analysis.

Slacklines are made of high-strength webbing suspended between trees, poles, towers, or other structures, according to Hughes Aerospace, and they “are often nearly invisible from the air and can present a significant hazard during low-altitude operations.” A helicopter crashed in Arizona after hitting a slackline whose location had been posted in a notam, but it was undetermined whether the pilot saw the notice.

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