While a customer was using Rockwell Collins' virtual avionics procedures trainer, he asked whether the touchscreen system could be used to help design a cockpit upgrade.
The company quickly decided it could be, and it has been used to help design the new "glass cockpit" version of the Boeing KC-135 and will be used to allow customer input for the KC-X tanker flightdeck layout, for which Rockwell Collins will be providing the avionics fit.
The trainer is a Windows-driven touchscreen display system built using commercial off-the-shelf components, but using re-hosted Rockwell Collins avionics software to produce the instrument interface.
There are no actual flight controls because the main purpose is to allow crews to practice using the avionics, flight management systems and autopilot. But the procedures trainer can, on autopilot, "fly and navigate" according to a flight plan entered using the normal interfaces, and the flight and engine instruments act as they would in a flight simulator. Power levers, switches, gear and flaps can all be operated using the touchscreen interface.
The trainer can, in 3min, be reconfigured from one type to another: for example from a KC-135 to a Beechcraft King Air 350. So far Rockwell Collins has only designed the system for its own avionic sets, because re-hosting the software makes the task simpler, but vice-president and general manager simulation and training systems Ken Schreder says the company intends to venture further.
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Source: Flight Daily News
