Sikorsky Aircraft and Thales are developing a highly integrated baseline cockpit for the S-76D helicopter scheduled to fly in late summer 2007. “There’s a lot of man-machine interface design that’s gone into this to reduce pilot workload,” says S-76D avionics/electrical integrated product team lead Ray Spagnullo. The optional digital map in the Thales TopDeck avionics suite will, for example, communicate directly with the flight management system to build flight plans and access required radio and navigation frequencies automatically.

The TopDeck system has been certified previously under FAR Part 27 for military AgustaWestland A109s in South Africa, Malaysia, and Sweden. Sikorsky plans to certify the S-76D, including the new glass cockpit, under FAR Part 29 for transport category helicopters. A development Systems Integration Laboratory is operating in Bordeaux, France, and a Sikorsky SIL in the US will interface the S-76D system with the Pratt & Whitney PW210S engine Full Authority Digital Electronic Control and other subsystems of the real aircraft.

The S-76D cockpit mockup shown at the HAI Heli-Expo in February showed the TopDeck layout for the new S-76 with four 8 by 10 in. liquid crystal displays. The two outboard screens are dedicated Pilot Flight Displays (PFDs) for primary flight symbology. The inboard Multi-Function Displays (MFDs) show systems data or an optional digital map. The highly integrated package is designed to transfer pilotage symbology to an MFD automatically should a PFD fail. Jeppson charts and checklists are loaded via a PCMCIA flashcard slot on the face of each “smart” display unit. The screens themselves are compatible with Night Vision Goggles, but NVG-compatible control heads will be integrated only when required by customers.

Unlike the current production S-76C++ cockpit with separate attitude, horizontal, and engine/caution advisory displays, the S-76D suite will integrate engine information pages on the MFDs. Caution/advisory conditions call up emergency procedures automatically when warnings appear on the MFD, and one button-push shows the pilots the system page associated with the warning. The S-76D will also have an improved voice warning system “We’re trying to put some logic into them so we’re not being inundated with numerous alerts at the same time,” says S-76D project pilot Greg Barnes.

The S-76D system Control Display Units provide the pilot interface to the Flight Management System. However, redundant FMS and communications management software resides in the outboard PFDs.

The TopDeck system on the Airbus A380 and other platforms showed the value of trackballs rather than joysticks to access the digital map. “The quality of the digital map was the best I think I’ve seen from any of the vendors,” says Mr. Barnes. The highly integrated digital map remains an option expected popular with most S-76D customers.

The S-76D also incorporates a Health and Usage Monitoring System (HUMS), active vibration control, Rotorcraft Icing Protection System, and other systems improvements. “We’re taking something that pretty good, an enduring design, and making it even better,” says Mr. Spagnullo.

Kawasaki Aerospace delivered the first of 14 AgustaWestland EH101 helicopters to the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) on March 3 at the Kawasaki Gifu plant. AgustaWestland and Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) signed a license and purchase agreement in 2003 to produce and support utility-ramped EH101s for transport, Airborne Mine Counter Measures (AMCM) and Antarctic support missions. Assembly of the second aircraft is underway at Gifu. The remaining 12 helicopter kits will be prepared by AgustaWestland in the UK for final assembly by Kawasaki. KHI also has a contract to assemble, test, repair and overhaul RTM322 Mk250 engines for the JMSDF EH101s.

Agusta Westland states the EH101 can tow mine countermeasures gear for 2.5 hours at 50 nm radius of action. The company recently announced development of a palletized AMCM system for the EH101 minesweeper. The internal package includes the AMCM operator console, winch assembly, and carriage, deployment and recovery system.

Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp. has been selected by Rheinmetall Defence Electronics to provide its simFUSION(R) 7000 PC image generator for the Tiger Aircrew Training Means Series Production (TATM SP) Program. The contract includes a nine-channel out-the-window (OTW) image generator plus a one-channel direct vision optics (DVO) image generator for each of 14 Tiger full mission simulators. It also includes a five-channel OTW image generator and a one-channel DVO image generator for each of 14 cockpit procedures trainers. Deliveries to Rheinmetall Defence Electronics simulation integration facilities in Bremen, Germany, will begin in 2006 and continue through 2011.

RotorCraft Leasing of Broussard, La., has ordered 50 Sky Connect TRACKER systems, with an option for 50 more, for its fleet of Bell and Sikorsky helicopters. The equipment will help RotorCraft Leasing track and communicate with helicopter crews as they perform missions in the Gulf Coast region. The system will include a satellite telephone link for voice and message capability.

Using the Iridium satellite constellation, the Sky Connect tracking system enables operators to view the location, track and status of their entire fleet. The system also delivers quality voice communications.

Telephonics has been selected by Bell Helicopter to supply the crew intercommunications system (ICS) for the US Army’s new ARH-70 Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH). The company’s Secure Digital ICS (SDI) will manage all crew audio communication and radio/navigation resources with a fully digital open architecture. It is already integrated aboard new Army CH-47F Chinooks and UH-60M Black Hawks, and aboard the MH-47 and MH-60 helicopters of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Use of the common TEMPEST-qualified ICS on multiple Army platforms promises to improve aircraft readiness and generate fleet logistics and training savings. The US Coast Guard is also participating in the common program by integrating SDI on the modernized HH-60T.

The SDI provides secure, high-quality audio and secure communications capability. This secure communication system integrates the routing and distribution of audio and data between the crewmembers, maintenance technicians, and vehicle communication, data, and recording systems. The system gives crewmembers the flexibility to control and distribute digital audio and data according to a connectivity matrix or mission plan.

The expandable system accommodates data links and the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) and performs simulcast and radio relay functions. Digital audio and digital control minimizes wiring, enhances immunity to EMI, and provides enhanced functionality. Telephonics will deliver more than 370 SDI systems for the ARH-70 from Fiscal 2006 through 2013.

The Aircraft Simulation Division of Naval Air Weapons Center Aircraft Division at Patuxent River networked its MH-60S Armed Helicopter Weapons System (AHWS) flight simulator in a Virtual Flag exercise sponsored by the Distributed Mission Operation Center and supported by the Multi-mission Helicopter Program Office. Pilots from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron One, VX-1, flew the AHWS simulator during special operations insertion and extraction, combat air support, and combat search and rescue missions.

The four-day simulation exercise linked more than 18 sites from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. It included several different types of aircraft, including the A-10, AV-8B, F-16, E-3, EC-135 Rivet Joint, and RQ-4 Predator. Other players controlled and coordinated the air space including Joint Tactical Area Controller Teams, the Air Support Operations Center and the Control and Reporting Center. The exercise ended with an out-brief to Gen. Corley, Vice Chief of Staff of the US Air Force.

The armed MH-60S will replace the HH-60H Seahawk for combat search and rescue, maritime interdiction, surface warfare, and Plane Guard missions.

The AHWS includes eight Hellfire missiles on external wings, laser-sighted M-240 7.62mm guns in the port and starboard cabin windows, and laser-sighted GAU-21 0.50 caliber guns in the port and starboard cabin doors.

The MH-60S also has the AN/AAS-44C multi-spectral targeting system and an Integrated Self Defense (ISD) suite including the AAR-47(V)2 missile warning system, ALQ-144(V)6 infrared jammer, and ALE-47 countermeasures dispensers. The MH-60R has Electronic Support Measures and the AHWS has the APR-39(A)V2 Radar Warning System. All the systems were simulated in the distributed event.

The Navy plans 162 armed helicopter system ISD kits and 126 weapon kits will be delivered to the fleet. The simulation exercise provided experience for testers in preparation for the upcoming MH-60S AHWS operational evaluation.

The Russian Novosti press agency reports first-stage flight testing of Mil Mi-28N attack helicopters for the Russian Air Force has been completed and the aircraft will soon be in service. A serial production model of the Mi-28N Night Hunter conducted its first flight in late December and has made 140 flights since then.

The head of the Air Force press service Alexander Drobyshevsky said that the Mi-28N Night Hunter had completed its first test flights, and the Rostov Helicopter Plant (Rosvertol) will launch full-scale production in the immediate future. Rosvertol will produce 20 Mi-28Ns under an initial three-year contract.

Air Force Accepts First Combat-Configured CV-22

US Air Force leaders took delivery of the first combat-configured CV-22 Osprey from Bell Boeing March 1 in a ceremony at the Bell tilt rotor assembly facility in Amarillo, Texas. The first Block B/10 CV-22 represents the production configuration with which the Air Force Special Operations Command will achieve Initial Operational Capability in 2009. The 71st Special Operations Squadron will get the aircraft to support aircrew training at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico.

The Air Force will receive 50 CV-22s for long-range infiltration, exfiltration, and re-supply of Special Operations forces in hostile or denied territory. The CV-22 is about 85% common with the Marine MV-22 Osprey, but integrates the Raytheon AN/APQ-186 Multi-Mode Radar with terrain following/terrain avoidance modes, ITT AN/ALQ-211 Suite of Integrated Radio-Frequency Countermeasures, and Northrop Grumman AN/ALQ-24 Directed Infrared Countermeasures suite. The CV-22 also has additional internal fuel and enhanced navigation and communications systems.

The Defense Department approved full rate production of the Osprey in September 2005, following successful completion of an operational evaluation in which the Osprey demonstrated all the key performance parameters for the Marine Corps mission. Additional operational test will begin later this year for those systems and mission profiles unique to the CV-22. The Marine Corps will stand up the first operational MV-22 squadron, at MCAS New River on March 3. VMM-263 achieves initial operational capability in the summer of 2007.

Sky Connect Sells Tracking Systems to Era Helicopters

Sky Connect has announced the sale of Tracker Iridium satellite-based aircraft tracking and telephone systems to Era Helicopters LLC of Lake Charles, Louisiana. The large fleet operator ordered 75 systems with an option for 50 more to support of its offshore oil operations. Twenty Tracker systems have already have been fielded, and Era plans to equip its entire fleet of Agusta, Bell, Eurocopter, and Sikorsky helicopters with the system, including a satellite telephone link. “Sky Connect gives us both an automated tracking solution for our helicopters and cost-effective satellite voice communications, “said Jim Shugart, executive vice president of Era Helicopters LLC.

More than 1,500 aircraft around the world are flying with Sky Connect equipment. The system provides operators with real-time knowledge of all airborne, ship-borne or ground assets. Operators can view the location, track, and status of an entire fleet under any circumstances. The system also delivers quality voice communications.

Wiley Loughran, Sky Connect senior vice president of sales and marketing noted that the market for satellite-based communication and tracking systems is accelerating in the aftermath of last year’s devastating hurricane season. “Operators using satellite-based communication were not affected,” he said, “while many of those with land-based systems were grounded.”

CRI Plans Quiet Flight Tests

The Center for Rotorcraft Innovation (CRI) plans flight tests this June with a specially instrumented Bell 206 JetRanger to develop three-dimensional quiet helicopter flight profiles. The program, entitled “Tactical Flying Procedures to Avoid Aural Acoustic Detection,” is being directed by the University of Maryland with contributions from NASA and the US Army Aeroflightdynamics laboratory. The research has application to homeland security operations. Senior Research Professor Fred Schmitz explains, “In many situations, you may need to fly from point A to point B without being noticed or detected. The flying techniques developed under this program can help you do this by minimizing the Blade-Vortex Interaction (BVI) impulsive noise heard on the ground.”

Plans call for about 30 hours of flying at Moffett Field, California (or at another suitable testing site nearby) with a unique flying microphone boom previously developed by the University of Maryland working in conjunction with a 3-D ground-based microphone array supplied and operated by the Army and NASA. The in-flight microphones are attached to a boom that is mounted under the belly of the helicopter and extends laterally past the rotor tips. The large boom span helps measure the directivity of BVI noise during steady-state and maneuvering flight. A new method of directly measuring the rotor’s tip-path-plane angle will also be employed to help the correlation of the aircraft performance state with BVI noise radiation. “A major objective of this test is to correlate the noise measured on the boom-mounted microphones with the noise measured on the ground,” explains professor Schmitz.

A second objective is to show that radiated maneuvering noise can be estimated using a Quasi-Static Acoustic Mapping (Q-SAM) approach (previously developed by the University of Maryland). Ultimately, the Army/NASA developed Rotorcraft Noise Model (RNM) acoustic prediction code will be modified to include Q-SAM, to enable rotorcraft ground noise predictions during maneuvering flight.

NASA will also install a Precision Guidance Display in the Bell 206 helicopter to help the pilot fly the quiet flight segments. The roughly 5 by 7 inch display has been developed by NASA Autonomous Flight Systems Branch to help pilots fly precision maneuvers and is being adapted to the JetRanger to give the pilot the visual information to help fly quiet flight segments. Instead of typical glide-slope information, the Pursuit Guidance Display will cue the helicopter pilot to stay behind a virtual aircraft on a noise-avoidance flight trajectory chosen to operate the helicopter in a minimum noise radiation state. Minimum noise is achieved by selecting quiet flight path angle and acceleration/deceleration profiles. “It turns out that deceleration and descent are acoustically equivalent in many situations,” says Professor Schmitz. “What you want to do is use these performance variables at strategic points along the trajectory to minimize the noise heard on the ground”. Compound maneuvers, such as climbing-accelerating turns or descending deceleration segments, may be required to avoid BVI and keep from being noticed.