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Aviation History
1974
1974 - 1837.PDF
FLIGHT International, 14 November 1974 INDUSTRY International Who's selling what Panavia has awarded a contract for project definition of the application of MRCA automatic testing to a con sortium comprising BAC's Automatic Test Systems Division (Stevenage), Siemens Bereich Mess- und Prozens- technik (Karlsruhe) and Aeritalia (Turin). The consortium will define the most cost-effective and operation ally acceptable way of using auto matic test equipment for MRCA ground support. Nasa's Goddard Spaceflight Centre has awarded a $1-5 million contract to RCA's Solid State Division (Somer- ville, NJ 08876) for approximately 50,000 highly reliable COS/MOS (com plementary symmetric metal-oxide- semiconductor) integrated circuits. They will be used in various satellites and space probes. Sundstrand's Aviation Mechanical Division (2421 Eleventh St, Rockford, 111 61101) has been awarded a $600,000 subcontract by Rockwell International's Space Division to pro duce the liquid-hydrogen recirculation pump for the space shuttle orbiter. Saudia has ordered 13 Stan (Summed total and nosegear) aircraft weight- and-balance monitoring systems from Fairchild Camera and Instrument's Industrial Products Division (464 Ellis St, Mountain View, Calif 94040). The airline will equip its Boeing 707s, 720Bs and 737s with Stan, which com putes total load and aircraft e.g. position. Qantas has ordered a second Boeing 747B flight simulator, worth $A2-5 million, from the Simulation Products Division of Singer (Binghamton, NY). The order is part of a $A5 million expansion of the airline's flight-train ing centre at Sydney airport. Specialised Mouldings (Redwongs Way, Huntingdon PE18 TH8) has delivered the glass-fibre shell for a Concorde flight simulator to the Link- Miles Division of Singer (UK). Avidities No 198 Head-up displays are possibly the United Kingdom's most successful avionics export. Marconi-Elliott Avionics has already sold more than 2,200 units with -some 1,000 having been delivered for the LTV A-7 and sales of the developed head- up display weapon aiming system (Hudwas) already past the 250 mark. L. D. Moore-Searson* looks atthe head-up display weapon-aiming computer (Hudwac) at the heart of most of the company's latest systems. M ODERN military aircraft designed for penetration at low level into heavily defended areas rely on a com plex group of highly accurate sensors such as attack radars and lasers for effective weapon delivery. Outputs from these sensors are normally pro- *Mr L. D. Moore-Searson is sales manager, Airborne Display Division. Marconi-Elliott Avionic Systems (a GEC-Marconi Electronics Company). Hudwac cessed by a central digital computer which, with advanced displays and flight controls, forms an integrated avionics system. For aircraft not opti mised for this role Marconi-Elliott Avionics claims to provide an accurate and flexible system for air-to-ground and air-to-air weapon delivery with its latest development in the field of digital head-up displays. The development is known as Hudwac (head-up display weapon- aiming computer) and provides an inexpensive weapon-delivery system for new aircraft in the Hawk/Alpha Jet category, but is equally effective when retrofitted to existing types like the Hunter and F-4. Modern head-up displays (Huds) in corporate a general-purpose digital computer and much of the information required for weapon aiming, including airspeed, altitude and attitude, is al ready processed for display to the pilot. Extending the speed and capacity of the Hud computer to carry out the processing required for weapon aiming is a simple task, making it relatively easy to add this capability to a display-only Hud at very little extra cost. Because it uses existing sensors, which may be as simple as a twin- gyro platform backed up by air data information, the Hudwac is simple to fit in existing aircraft (see fig 1). Using the data in this way, the pilot is given an improved display together with a digitally computed weapon release or aiming solution presented right where he needs it most—super imposed on his view of the target. The ability to fly the aircraft and aim weapons is therefore improved and weapon-aiming accuracies are in- Fig I (left), Hudwac uses information from existing sensors which normally feed a "sym- bology-only" Hud. The electronic unit is pro grammed according to the weapon aiming requirements of the aircraft. Fig 2, the Hudwac for the A-4M has 3in-diameter optics and a modified A-7 Hud electronics unit with a 4,000-word store. This is claimed to be the first production system to incorporate a tracer- line snap-shoot sight AND HEAIilWG REFERENCE/ SYSTEM PILOTS CONTROL UNIT PILOTS DISPLAY UNIT JS» IOEO SIGNAL UNIT
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