Pilatus Aircraft has contracted Esterline to provide performance cockpit avionics for the French Air Force’s PC-21 turboprop trainer aircraft.

The contract requires Esterline’s Avionics Systems business unit to supply cockpit displays and CMC Electronics brand dual flight management systems (FMS), global positioning system (GPS), landing system sensors, and a head-up display (HUD) subsystem.

Esterline Avionics Systems president Michel Potvin said: “Esterline has collaborated with Pilatus on a number of PC-21 programmes to date, providing a wide range of advanced avionics.

The six active-matrix LCD displays comprise four cockpit head-down displays (CHDD-268) and two smart multi-function displays (MFD-2068) that are in both the front and rear cockpit.

Both CHDD-268 and MFD-2068, featuring MOSArt software suite, function as the primary flight and navigation displays.

"The PC-21’s FMS is a variant of CMC Electronics CMA-9000 flight management system that is suitable for modern digital cockpits on both fixed and rotary wing aircraft."

The HUD subsystem includes the CMC Electronics brand SparrowHawk HUD with a set of front and rear cockpit up-front control panels and HUD camera, a HUD symbol generator, and a video display unit for the rear seat instructor. 

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The SparrowHawk HUD can display both raster video and stroke symbology. 

The PC-21’s FMS is a variant of CMC Electronics CMA-9000 flight management system that is suitable for modern digital cockpits on both fixed and rotary wing aircraft.

Esterline said that CMC Electronics high-performance CMA-5024 GPS landing system sensor provides RNP-RNAV and LPV GPS Approach capability.


Image: Pilatus PC-21 trainer demonstrator about to land. Photo: courtesy of Adrian Pingstone (Arpingstone).