THE GERMAN AIR force is planning to install a display video-recording system (DVRS) in its Panavia interdictor-strike (IDS) Tornados and upgrade the system in its electronic-combat-and-reconnaissance (ECR) versions.
While no contract has yet been issued, the German defence ministry says that it wants to install the system in as many of its aircraft as budgets allow. Priority will be given to aircraft in rapid-reaction units and training aircraft.
Funding is to be available from this year until 1998. The upgrade is to begin in 1996 for completion by 1999.
The video-recording system under consideration is from Hamburg-based BKT. It includes a BKT-made head-up-display camera and a US-made TEAC V-80 video recorder. The DVRS can be used to record seven video and cockpit audio channels.
The ministry says that, apart from being a useful debriefing tool, the need for the upgrade stems from problems with the older system on German ECR Tornados. These systems suffered from poor recording quality and there were technical problems with the ground station monitoring the video signals from the aircraft.
Sources close to the upgrade say that it is also being driven by the continuing competition for a new laser-designator pod for the German air force.
Some systems on offer, such as GEC-Marconi's thermal imaging and laser-designator pod (TIALD), have no integral video-recording system.
The German air force is considering replacing cathode-ray-tube tabular displays in the Tornado cockpit with colour liquid crystal displays, according to Panavia.
The replacement of the moving-map display with a digital map, which can also show individual threats and threat analyses is also under consideration.
The defence ministry says that this is not yet a part of the formal Tornado upgrade programme up to the year 2000, which so far covers the updating of the on-board computer, software and the aircraft's databus.
Source: Flight International
