Rotary wing aircraft proximity warning system with a geographically based avoidance system

An aircraft comprising:

• a proximity sensor suite mounted to the aircraft for detecting nearby obstacles;
• a database containing at least one sensitive geographic area;
• an aircraft positional system;
• an avoidance system in communication with said database, said aircraft positional system and said sensor suite, said avoidance system operable to determine an aircraft position relative said at least one sensitive geographic area to control a transmission power output of said proximity sensor suite in response to the aircraft position being within a predefined minimum threshold of said at least one geographic sensitive area;
• and
• an alert system in communication with said voidance system.

A method of geographic area avoidance for an aircraft comprising the steps of:

• (A) storing at least one sensitive area within a database of an avoidance system;
• (B) determining an aircraft position relative to the at least one sensitive area and controlling a transmission power output of a sensor system in response to the aircraft position being within a predefined minimum threshold of said at least one sensitive area;
• and
• (C) displaying an alert in response to the aircraft position being within a predefined minimum threshold of the at least one sensitive area.