Ian Sheppard/PARIS
Sextant Avionique is already gearing up to offer avionics systems from its future sister company Dassault Eléctronique. The initiative is part of the French company's efforts to build a flightdeck package to compete with integrated products offered by major US suppliers.
Dassault Eléctronique developed an array of civil systems over the 1990s which will now be offered as an integrated part of Sextant's airliner cockpit suite. These include the new Aero-I Satcom ground collision avoidance system, its extended quick-access recorder and Mode S transponder.
The move comes as Dassault Eléctronique prepares to become a Sextant sister company within the giant French electronics grouping Thomson-CSF. Olivier Hue, director of commercial avionics at Dassault Eléctronique says that the company is "-in the process of rationalising its activities with Sextant to avoid duplication". He admits that a civil radar is the main missing piece of the package, typically accounting for 5-10% by value, and he points to GEC as the prime potential supplier in Europe.
Sextant has already forged a close relationship with the UK's Smiths Industries, from which it has now signed a deal to license software for its next generation flight management system, targeted at the Airbus Industrie range.
Other additions to the package could be added if, as widely expected, the Thomson-CSF grouping expands to include other suppliers, such as Sfim, which produces fibre-optic gyro attitudes and heading reference systems for Sextant. Robert Debras, Sfim director of international business development, confirms that the company is for sale and that any buyer will have to be French because of its significant defence interests, many of which overlap with those of the new Thomson-CSF grouping.
Sextant senior vice-president Jean-Paul Lepeytre says that the new integrated product will be based on the design for the new first generation Integrated Modular System (IMS). The first application of IMS, the IMS-100, was on the Bombardier de Havilland Dash 8-400, which, in February, became the first regional aircraft to fly with with what is, for Sextant, the first step towards full integrated modular avionics (IMA) architecture. "The adaption cost is very low," says Lepeytre, making transition to IMS-200 for the TOPDECK programme to update Lockheed Martin C-130s with Marshall Aerospace of the UK relatively easy.
Meanwhile, IMS-300 is being offered for the proposed Airbus AE31X, a shortened version of the A319, and other new Airbus types. IMS-400 will be aimed at the next generation of business jets, offering a full IMA architecture.
Sextant is "confident in its future role as the lead avionics supplier for the AE31X", and intends to "push the limits of system integration". Although the company integrates the flight management, guidance, envelope protection and the fault isolation and detection system on current Airbus models, Aerospatiale retains the overhaul integration role.
Source: Flight International
