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Aviation History
1976
1976 - 0049.PDF
FLIGHT International, w/e 10 lonuary 1976 MRCA—new features revealed MRCA P.06, which flew for the first tiotne on December 20 (see World News last week, page 2), is the first to carry the 27mm Mauser guns (right). One muzzle can be seen just aft of the radome, and the shell-case ejection chute is beneath the engine intake. The rearward-facing fairing imme diately aft of the Doppler radar aerial under the fuselage houses a camera for stores release and undercarriage- operation investigation. 61 arv I W Ute WTWSL *•*.%».. ,W The modifications being developed to overcome the loss of lateral stability at transonic speeds (see Flight for November 13, 1975, page 717) are evident in these photographs. On P.02 (left) the existing rear-spine contours have been extended over the engine nozzles, an addition which pre cludes the use of reverse thrust. On P.06 the contour has been substantially changed aft of the exhaust port at the base of the fin. It is now more convex than before, but a small cutaway under the rudder remains. The P.02 modifica tion can be regarded as a "quick-fix" to enable high-speed flying to proceed, while that on P.06 is more refined and also reduces drag slightly. u n , a H Avionics Sea Harrier— latent potential DESPITE THE technological buoy ancy of Britain's avionics in dustry, it is possible that the Sea Harrier will be the last domestic project to include all-British avionics. Although the airframe is only slightly different from that of the present Harrier, the avionics are totally new and three of the nav/attack-system components are being developed for maritime use. Heart of the nav/attack is the Heading and Attitude Reference Sys tem (HARS) being developed by Ferranti. This twin-gyro platform (aided by inputs from the air-data computer and Doppler radar) feeds the Smiths Industries head-up display (HUD) with along-track and cross- track velocities and pitch, roll and bank angles. The Ferranti Blue Fox radar feeds range, elevation, azimuth and angular-rate-of-change informa tion to the HUD. The original Sea Harrier avionics specification called for a full inertial system, very similar to that in MRCA (see Flight for December 18, 1975, page 887) but with slightly derated gyros. But by the time Sea Harrier became firm, financial constraints demanded a simpler solution; the result is a system offering consider able growth potential for a low cost. Ferrantd's first move was to resur rect a five-year-old gyroscope patent; the unit was not then technically feasible but on paper did offer con siderable performance improvements. It is a two-axis dry gyroi with excellent reactivity to rapid changes in velocity; only two are required on a platform. This gyro is still in the embryo The Smiths Industries head-up display for the Sea Harrier combines both raster and cursive symbology-presentation techniques. The pilot's display unit is shown above and, left, the control panel stage of development but, in Fer- ranti's opinion, possesses great poten tial. The system departs from the customary Ferranti one-box design because Hawker Siddeley wants to keep to a more proven two-box plat form and computer (which could be rapidly upgraded to a full inertial system should the requirement arise). Ferranti manufactures a family of air borne computers, including those in MRCA and the Japanese FST-2; the Sea Harrier unit was developed some four years after the MRCA installa tion and is therefore considerably faster in its calculations. The gyro platform is tied in with externally derived heading and Dop-
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