Ian Sheppard TOULOUSE
Airbus Industrie partner Aerospatiale has launched a major product improvement programme to develop a retrofittable, "freeflight" ready common flightdeck. Also included will be a switch to flat panel liquid crystal displays.
The upgraded Airbus flightdeck will be designed for the A320/ A330/A340 range and future types such as the A3XX and AE31X. Airbus expects to start flight tests of the flightdeck in "early 2000" with entry into service in around 2002.
Jean-Pierre Laborie, head of Aerospatiale's engineering systems department, says that a new "systems workshop" has been established to get the work under way.
Central to the flightdeck upgrade will be the Air Traffic Service Unit (ATSU), "the key equipment" for full Future Air Navigation System (FANS) functionality, says Francois Cerbelaud, Aerospatiale FANS development manager. It is effectively a replacement for the Airborne Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) used by Boeing for FANS-1, and will include a Rockwell Collins ACARS datalink.
Aerospatiale has developed a Datalink Control and Display Unit (DCDU), produced with Smiths Industries, which is being tested on Airbus A330 and A340 development aircraft, to replace voice communications with datalinks.
The DCDU, a duplicate unit situated above the navigation computer display and to one or other side of the systems display, has been ordered by major airlines as part of the Airbus FANS-A package. "The DCDU is the interface for all ATC communications," says Cerbelaud, adding that DCDUs will be installed on an A320 development aircraft later this year following US Airways' selection of FANS-A.
Airbus tested the DCDU with mock air traffic control (ATC) stations last May and will carry out further tests later this year, to look at the differences between FANS-A and FANS-B, and further define the ATSU function, says Cerbelaud. "It is the Airbus strategy to prepare for high-density routes," he says, adding that together the DCDU and ATSU allow for "different retrofit strategies" through their inherent flexibility.
A second generation flight management system (FMS) will provide the new flightdeck's "navigation core". Sextant Avionique is developing an FMS using software licensed from Smiths Industries of the UK, to offer in competition with a Honeywell system. A supplier for the electronic flight instrument system has not yet been chosen.
The common flightdeck development is also being used as an opportunity to undertake a wholesale switch to flat panel liquid crystal displays, their first use in Airbus aircraft.
In addition, Aerospatiale is looking at a cockpit display for traffic information as part of a new European Community project, with a "similar approach" to that of AlliedSignal's Integrated Hazard Alerting System.
Source: Flight International
