By Ben Ames
SUGAR GROVE, Ill. — CMC Electronics avionics designers are working off a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology base to build a family of avionics display systems to function across the spectrum of military aircraft — from today's helicopters and flight trainers to the high-performance aircraft in advanced development.
Robert Atac, corporate vice president for military aviation at the firm's Sugar Grove facility (the former Flight Visions Inc. acquired by CMC in 2001), cites the new integrated glass cockpit, designated Cockpit 4000, which has been qualified for the jet trainer market, including export sales to Korea and elsewhere. The digital head-up display is now completing bench tests, according to Atac.
The complete system costs about $380,000 and represents an essentially open-system architecture that can accept Compact PCI and PMC multiprocessor bus configurations to drive active-matrix liquid-crystal displays (AMLCDs).
These AMLCDs, in 4-by-5-, 5-by-7-, and 6-by-8-inch configurations, fit on the panel with the flight instruments, but a helmet-mounted version is currently in development, adds Bruce Bailey, vice president for commercial aviation at CMC's headquarters in Kanata, Ontario. Bailey is looking to expand beyond flight-trainer applications to such future aircraft as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
The same COTS technology is part of CMC's CMA-2082M flight management system initially aimed at the U.S. Army's UH-60 helicopter fleet. First qualifying flight was completed last September as part of the U.S. Army's program to modernize its UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter fleet.
In its Black Hawk, Nighthawk, and Seahawk configurations, this family of helicopters cuts across all the services and has accumulated 25 years of operations.
This is about a $50,000 unit with a built-in mission computer and is based on PowerPC technology. A PCI backplane version is now in development that would use only two of the five slots, leaving three as spares for future expansion.
The 3-by-5-inch electroluminescent display can work with MIL-STD 1553B and ARINC 429 interfaces. Atac estimates the military services will need 3,000 units, one each for the pilot and copilot of the 1,500-helicopter fleet.
