STEWART PENNEY / LONDON
Denel Aviation has developed a helicopter cockpit development platform and simulator, to cut the cost of flight testing.
Project manager Jimmy Nel says the Helicopter Avionics Development & Evaluation System (HADES) is used for integration purposes, to debug software for cockpit upgrades and resolve any man-machine interface problems. "It is a useful tool as flying on the ground is a lot cheaper than flying the real thing," he says. Although based in an Aerospatiale Puma/Denel Oryx cockpit HADES is a generic system, he adds.
HADES also demonstrates Denel's upgrade capabilities, says Nel. The system has been used to demonstrate equipment to the South African and United Arab Emirates air forces. It will also be used as the basis for a procedural trainer for operations with night vision goggles (NVGs).
Danie Viljoen, Denel manager automatic flight control system, says HADES uses the Rooivalk attack helicopter's autopilot driving four-axis actuation - roll, pitch, yaw and the collective. The inputs are feed into a simulation computer, which drives the visual system. Links are via either ethernet or Arinc 429, depending on the system being fed with data. Future upgrades will add a flight management system.
Although the current system uses off-the-shelf PC computer displays and other components, Viljoen says it will be modified to take a customer's choice of avionics once a contract is signed.
Viljoen says the hardware in the loop testing allows flight test time reductions of 30-40%, which has a similar impact on development costs. Changes can be made without needing to re-clear the helicopter for safe operation, allowing alterations and further evaluation in minutes rather than days.
To create an NVG simulator a training station will be developed so an instructor can feed scenarios into the training mission.
Source: Flight International