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Aviation History
1998
1998 - 0248.PDF
MILITARY AVIONICS Ten years before theJSF enters service, mission simulations help Boeing refine its cockpit design Avionics. This is intended as a substitute for the cancelled ASPJ and, in fact, uses several mod ules from the APQ-165. The big different, however, is that the IDECM is based on a towed radar decoy. Towed decoys are becoming all the rage. Raytheon has developed the ALE-50 decoy which is to be installed on US Air Force F-16s and Rockwell B-1 Bs. The ALE-50 is a relative ly simple decoy which, once deployed, repeats the signal received from a hostile radar to draw the incoming missile away from the aircraft. Sanders' ALE-55 fibre-optic towed decoy (FOTD) for the IDECM is a more-sophisticat ed system. Emitter information from die host- aircraft's radar-warning receiver is fed to a "techniques generator", mounted inside the air craft, which creates deceptive-jamming signals communicated via wide-band fibre-optic cable to high-power transmitters in the towed decoy. The IDECM is under development for the US Navy's F/A-18E/F and US Air Forces B-l B, F-1E and U-2. Flight testing is to begin early in 1998, with production scheduled to start in 1999. Lockheed Martin is interested in adapting the system to its F-16, and the ALE-5 5 is designed to be deployed from the same dis penser as the existing ALE-50 decoy, for ease of upgrade. Raytheon, meanwhile, is working on an FOTD upgrade to the ALE-50 which has been selected by the UK for its updated British Aerospace Nimrod 2000 maritime-patrol air craft. This uses Northrop Grumman micro wave power-modules in the towed decoy. Few details have been released of the planned JSF FAY system, other than that radio-frequen cy (\U-) electronics will be shared, using com mon modules, integrated core processors, and shared apertures for radar, CNI and EYV func tions - the most important of which will be die already-mentioned multi-function nose array. The use of advanced towed decoys - possibly IR, as well as RF- seems likely. COCKPIT DISPLAYS The F-22's cockpit represents a substantial advance over anything flying today, particularly in its use of large-format liquid-crystal displays (LCDs). It does not, at the moment, include a helmet-mounted display, butoneisscheduled to be installed before die aircraft enters service, to allow full use of die off-boresight capability- of the improved ALV1-9X dogfight missile under development by Raytheon. The F-22 is one of the applications planned for the Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS) under development by Vision Systems International, a joint venture formed by Kaiser Electronics and Israel's Elbit Systems. The other initial applications will be on the USAF's F-15s and F-16s and the USX's F/A- 18s, with production scheduled to begin in 2000. The initial JHMCS will be a monocular, monochrome display projecting symbology on to the helmet visor. The 20° display field-of- view will be suitable for otf-boresight missile cueing in daylight air-combat. A pre-planned product-improvement programme addresses future system upgrades required for air-to- ground operations in the Boeing AV-8B, as well astheJSE The JSF programme office has already con ducted flight tests, using a TAV-8B, to deter mine whether a wide-field-of-view IIAll), coupled with three-dimensional audio and speech command, can reduce pilot workload and increase situational awareness sufficiently to allow the head-up display to be eliminated from the JSF cockpit. Results from the Integrated Helmet Audio Visual System demonstration have been fed into the J11 \1( !S programme to ensure that the resulting helmet- mounted display can be integrated into the win ning JSF design during the engineering- and manufacturing-development phase, which is scheduled to begin in 2001. J Increased avionics integration will help Lockheed Martin reduce JSF size, weight and cost 30 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 28 January - 3 February 1998
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