Avionics News May 2015 - 4

Attention OEMs:
Some consideration, please

I

comms and 90/150 modulation on an ILS. It seems like
'm sure most Avionics News readers have strong
some things are never going to change.
words with a computer or (so-called) smartphone
Even the newest integrated cockpits still have those
when it does what it wants instead of what you want.
old VHF and ILS radios, although the equipment is a
It occurs, but far less often than perhaps it could,
little more modern than the old comm 11A, which was
particularly when you consider the complexity of all
the first aircraft radio I worked on.
modern electronic gadgets.
That cockpit integration has reached
Actually, we live in a remarkable age. Our
beyond the basic flight instruments and
phones have far more computing power than
communication systems. System integration
what was on the first American spacecraft that
has removed the traditional discrete
took men to the moon and back. Phones have
LRUs, replacing them with multipurpose
certainly changed the way we go about our
cards in a modular card rack. The card
work. When I first started working on aircraft,
that processes the airspeed display might
engineers carried notebooks to record part
also be crunching numbers for the FMS
numbers and serial numbers. Today, we take a
Michael Kus
or controlling the pressurization. In
photo of the label with our phone.
some ways, modern avionics is like the
The same phones have certainly helped
smartphone with multiple apps running on the same
when we have a sticky problem. We're able to take a
processor and sharing a common display.
video of the behavior of a system that is not working
However, those same changes have also changed
properly. While we're on the aircraft, we can email it
what we are able to do. In some respects, I think we've
to the equipment manufacturer for their engineers to
gone backward, not forward. When I look at our ability
review and offer some advice. A few years ago, I had
to carry out system upgrades or provide some extra
a problem with a satellite phone system. I called the
capability for a specific purpose, I find it is becoming
manufacturer from the aircraft, and 10 minutes later I
increasingly difficult. Modern avionics does not give
had a new software load emailed to me from England.
us the same flexibility to build a "stack" the way we
I loaded it, and the job was done.
once did. A glance into many older cockpits will often
I've even used a digital protractor app on my phone
show an avionics suite with equipment from several
to check the tilt angle on a radar antenna!
different manufacturers, all installed because the
We've also seen huge advances in avionics in just
aircraft owner liked the features of a specific unit, or
a few short years. I started in this business with HFs
because of pricing considerations.
with banks of crystals and a big box of load coils.
There were standard interface protocols for a lot of
Now it's synthesized oscillators and digital antenna
matching. Or maybe no HF at all and FANS over
Continued on page 63
Iridum. It is strange that we still use AM VHF for

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may 2015
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Avionics News May 2015

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