Meggitt Avionics has been selected to provide improved avionics for four Shaanxi Y-8 transports operated by the Chinese military.
Under the arrangement, Meggitt provided Chinese firm Chengdu CAIC Electronics with its third-generation integrated secondary flight display (iSFD) and magnetic heading sensor (MHS) for use in CAIC's flight display upgrade programme, said Meggitt in a statement.
"We are delighted with Meggitt's first successful collaboration with an AVIC [Aviation Industry Corp of China] company and plan to continue our strategy to strengthen and support this key growth market," said Joe Morgan, the director of sales and marketing at Meggitt Avionics.
In an email to Flightglobal, Meggitt said the four aircraft involved required improved avionics than is standard on the Y-8. CAIC took delivery of five ship sets in 2011, with one as a spare. Two Y-8s with the new avionics fit were delivered in late 2011, and Meggitt expects the entire programme to be completed by mid-2012.
"We are working with Chinese avionics [CAIC] and original equipment suppliers on additional civil applications (where most of our products have been traditionally targeted) and to identify more opportunities, both civil and military," said Meggitt. "We have designed our products such that the civil applications can be extended to military aircraft. This additional capability is in line with the global market trend of military aircraft manufacturers looking to civil instruments to reduce through life costs."
Meggitt's high resolution iSFD complements modern glass cockpits, integrating attitude, altitude, air speed and heading data through internal inertial and air data sensors. Its solid-state MHS provides accurate and fully stabilised heading information when used as part of the secondary flight display system. The latter can be used as an independent second heading source or as a primary instrument, it added.
The iSFD and MHS are installed in more than 40 different aircraft programmes and over 5,000 are in service worldwide, said Meggitt. The company declined to give a value for the Y-8 deal.
Source: Flight International
