Carson Helicopters gives the classic Sikorsky
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Photo courtesy Carson Helicopters
business
Carson Helicopters gives the classic Sik
cockpit with synthetic vision for business a
by Frank Colucci
C
arson Helicopters in Perkasie, Pa., has a hangar full of Sikorsky
S-61s, both civil S-61L/Ns and retired U.S. Navy H-3 Sea Kings.
The remanufacturer makes the old aircraft better than new for
resale to the U.S. State Department and other operators. Among
recent improvements is an integrated “glass” cockpit to be certified
this year first by the Sikorsky Qualification Assurance Board (QAB) for govern-
ment users and then by FAA for Part 29 transport helicopter operators. Accord-
14 Avionics Magazine March 2013 www.avionicstoday.com
ing to Carson Helicopters
founder and President
Frank Carson, “I believe
I can have one version
for both military and
civil and use it in all your
legacy aircraft and new
helicopters.” The Carson
cockpit was designed and
integrated by Cobham
Commercial Systems in
Mineral Wells, Texas, for
the S-61 and other appli-
cations. “I’d be able to
put the whole thing in an
S-76 or Black Hawk,” said
Carson. “You want to put
the best system you can
on the market and have it
fit in different aircraft.”
Carson’s Cobham cock-
pit is due to fly for the
first time this spring in a
remanufactured SH-3H.
It replaces vintage ana-
log instruments with four
multi-function color dis-
plays that show primary
Carson Helicopters in Perkasie, Pa., rebuilds Sikorsky H-3s
and S-61s for the State Department and commercial opera- flight symbology, engine
tors. The company holds 29 STCs for S-61 improvements.
and systems data, flight
management pages,
korsky S-61 an integrated digital maps, radar video
and government operators and three-dimensional
helicopter Terrain Aware-
ness Warning System (TAWS) graphics. The smart displays also provide geo-
referenced hover cues and digital flight recording functions. As an option, Carson
will supplement the 6-by-8-inch portrait displays with a 19-inch diagonal touch-
screen and powerful mission computer from LCX Systems, based in Sarasota,
Fla. The big center display can show high-resolution maps, satellite imagery and
synthetic vision presentations, and facilitate mission planning.
“What I’m trying to do is have a new dimension with this glass cockpit,” says
www.avionicstoday.com March 2013 Avionics Magazine 15Photo courtesy Cobham Integrated Systems The baseline Cobham Electronic Flight Instrument System for the S-61 has four portrait-format smart displays hosting a Flight Management System with primary flight, aircraft systems and terrain puter will also be an option. Carson. “I don’t like what I have been seeing in industry. They’re [just] replacing a lot of steam gauges with a screen.” The new S-61 cockpit hardware and most software come from various Cobham cockpit suites previously certified on fixed and rotary wing platforms. According to Gordon Pratt, Cobham vice president of business development and S-61 sys- tem architect, “Pretty much everything we’re doing for this aircraft is something we’ve put on other aircraft.” He notes, “Our requirements came from Frank Carson. He has taken this old S-61 airframe and transformed it into a 21st cen- tury transporter.” Better Than New Sikorsky Aircraft delivered military H-3s and civil S-61s from 1960 to 1980 and today counts more than 600 aircraft around the world available for moderniza- tion, including Sea Kings built by Westland in the U.K. Carson Helicopters itself no longer flies S-61s for hire, but the enduring helicopter remains a successful platform for the company’s innovations. High-lift composite main rotor blades developed by the independent inventor went into production in 2004 and became the centerpiece of the VH-3D Presidential helicopter Lift Improvement Program. AAR Airlift uses 10 Carson S-61s to provide FAR Part 135 “on demand” support for the Department of Defense in mountainous Afghanistan. (One of the aircraft crashed in the Helmand province in January due to unknown causes.) Sikorsky figures the new main rotor and today’s GE T58-GE-402 engines give its S-61T 62 percent more external payload than a short-fuselage UH-3H or 113 percent more external payload than a long-bodied S-61N at high density alti- tudes. A power-efficient composite tail rotor that promises to hike payload even more recently completed flight testing. A modern engine with electronic control is under consideration. All told, Carson Helicopters holds 29 Supplemental Type 16 Avionics Magazine March 2013 www.avionicstoday.com
Certificates (STC) for S-61 improvements and has rebuilt more than 45 of the
hard-flown helicopters for logging, construction and general transport. The spe-
cialized Fire King version has a 1,000-gallon water tank and snorkel to douse for-
est fires and still seats 15 passengers.
Sikorsky has meanwhile become Carson’s biggest customer, selling the S-61T
Triton totally rebuilt with Carson blades, crash-worthy fuel cells, a modular elec-
trical system based on that of the UH-60 Black Hawk and an analog cockpit
made compatible with Night Vision Goggles. Sikorsky plans to offer the four-
screen Cobham digital cockpit as an S-61T option.
Carson cannot discuss U.S. government programs, but in 2010 Sikorsky
announced an Indefinite Delivery-Indefinite Quantity contract from the Department of
State International Narcotics and Law (INL) Enforcement Affairs bureau for up to 110
rebuilt S-61s, both long-body S-61Ns and short S-61Ts. The INL Air Wing supports
counter-narcotics missions in Afghanistan and uses S-61s on Embassy diplomatic
missions. The helicopters carry up to 21 passengers and can also be used for Com-
mand and Control, Medevac, and Quick Reaction or other Security Force missions
day or night, under visual and Instrument Meteorological Conditions. Aircraft des-
tined for Afghanistan are protected by Alliant AN/AAR-47 missile warning receivers
and BAE AN/ALE-47 flare/chaff dispensers integrated and installed by Southeast
Aerospace in Melbourne, Fla.
S-61Ts now start with ex-Navy Sea Kings pulled from desert storage. Half of the
aircraft are stripped and structurally restored at the Sikorsky facility in Troy, Ala.;
the others are torn down and reconditioned by Carson Helicopters. Carson rewires
and re-plumbs all the rebuilt airframes, overhauls all dynamics, and reassemble, re-
paints, and delivers better-than-new helicopters. Early this year, the Perkasie reman-
ufacturing line had the first SH-3H rebuilt with a four-screen glass cockpit. An S-61N
will be acquired to civil-certify the full five-screen suite.
What’s Up Front
To increase safety and reduce pilot workload in its S-61s, Carson Helicopters previ-
ously invested in a five-screen integrated cockpit that mixed hardware from major
Sikorsky Aircraft sells the remanu-
factured, long-fuselage S-61L mod-
Photo courtesy Sikorsky Aircraft
els and short-body S-61T models to
the U.S. State Department.
www.avionicstoday.com March 2013 Avionics Magazine 17suppliers but failed to meet
Part 29 Category A IFR require-
ments. A subsequent presen-
Photo courtesy Southeast Aerospace
tation by Cobham Integrated
Systems offered variations of
a robust, affordable, proven
architecture that could be IFR
Part 29 certified and made
compliant with Area Navigation
(RNAV) and Required Naviga-
tion Performance (RNP) stan-
dards.
Pratt and co-founder Rick
Price launched Sierra Flight Sys-
tems in 1997 and won the FAA
Capstone contract to develop a
synthetic vision Electronic Flight
Instrument System (EFIS) for
Photo courtesy Carson Helicopters
Alaskan pilots in 2000. “That’s
where all of this came from,”
explained Pratt. Capstone tech-
nology was certified by FAA in
2001. “Since then, it’s found its
way into a lot of different niches
in the aviation market. The Cap-
stone program forced us to
(Top) S-61s destined for Afghanistan are protected by the AAR-47 missile
warning receiver and ALE-47 countermeasures dispensers integrated by
develop a product that could be
Southeast Aerospace. integrated into many, many differ-
(Bottom) Carson intends to market the Cobham avionics suite to commercial
S-61 operators. The company has STCs to shorted long-bodied S-61L/N air- ent types of aircraft,” Pratt said.
frames to increase payload in logging and construction operations.
Sierra was acquired by Cob-
ham, and Pratt today counts EFIS
STCs in more than 740 types ranging from the Cessna 182 to the Eurocopter Puma.
“Every customer we have has only a handful of aircraft. They can’t afford millions in non-
recurring engineering. They need something that can be configured off-the-shelf. I could
take the display off an S-61 and install the same part numbers in a C-130.”
The redundant, interchangeable IDU-680 displays in the Carson S-61 integrate
database-generated synthetic vision graphics with flight management functions and
hazard warnings. The split-screen EFIS also shows primary pilotage and flight man-
agement symbology with three-dimensional terrain, obstacles and air traffic graphics
in a highway-in-the-sky format. The predictive flight director shows the pilot a safe
tunnel on the primary flight display. The baseline Cobham Flight Management Sys-
18 Avionics Magazine March 2013 www.avionicstoday.comtem (FMS) is designed for IFR flight and shows digital maps, geo-referenced hover
vectors and user-defined approaches to any point. The four-screen system provides
WAAS-based Localizer Performance with Vertical Guidance (LPV) Approach guid-
ance and can show Hot or no-fly zones stored in its database.
The smart displays with integral processors also provide essential redundancy to
sustain FMS, TAWS and other functions in case of malfunctions or damage. “They
all communicate with each other in a hierarchy,” explained Pratt. “If one display fails,
the next in line takes its place as a master.” The EFIS displays have integral Intel
Pentium processors. “They’re highly ruggedized compared to what you’d buy off the
shelf,” noted Pratt. “The product life for an industrial processor is years and years,
where a commercial processor may last months.”
The S-61 avionics suite includes two Air Data/Attitude/Heading Reference Sys-
tems (ADHARS) and dual GPS-WAAS receivers to use space-based augmenta-
tion for precision approaches to ILS minimums with no ground infrastructure. The
ADHARS and GPS are mounted on the panel displays without dedicated wires and
connectors. The Carson civil STC’d version also has interfaces for a Traffic Collision
Advisory System (TCAS 1), digital radar altimeter, Honeywell RDR2000 color weather
radar, and the supplemental mission computer and display. Expandable ARINC 429,
RS232 and RS422 databuses tie aircraft sensors to displays, and all critical functions
run though comparators.
The new S-61 cockpit also provides integrated audio-radio management. Two con-
trol heads on the redesigned center console work up to 16 radios — the old console
held up to 10 individual radio control heads. The baseline S-61 suite includes two
VHF communications sets, two VHF navigators, ADF, VME and a Mode S transpon-
der. Customers can wire more radios into the avionics rack and add software pages
in the FMS for each new set. Compared to the traditional S-61 communications
suite, the new architecture simplifies upgrade and opens more cockpit space. “A lot
comes out of that center console,” noted Pratt. “In Carson intends to augment the Cobham four-
screen EFIS with a 19-inch touchscreen and
fact they make it shorter so it’s easier to get in and mission computer from LCX Systems for high-
resolution maps, satellite imagery, mission
out of the seats.” planning and other functions.
Pratt worked with Carson engineers and FAA rep-
resentatives on the high-level systems architecture
Photo courtesy LCX Systems
for the S-61. Cobham engineers turned the cartoon-
like preliminary drawings into certification drawings.
Systems engineers, meanwhile, undertook software
development and created S-61-unique aircraft config-
uration files. “Everything is done with lookup tables in
field-loadable software,” said Pratt. Speeds, weights,
center-of-gravity calculations from the Pilot’s Operat-
ing Handbook and engine temperatures taken from
factory documentation or field measurements tailor
www.avionicstoday.com March 2013 Avionics Magazine 19the system to the air vehicle. Smart connectors bring power and data to displays. “The only thing that changes from one aircraft to the next is that lookup table. It doesn’t care what aircraft it goes into.” The S-61 suite could migrate to the S-70 and S-76 instrument panel with software changes only. “All the hardware would be the same part numbers, but they would have their own aircraft configuration files loaded through the connectors in the dis- plays. It stays with the aircraft,” Pratt said. Commercial hardware and software also free the EFIS from International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Cobham hot benches tried the S-61 hardware and software first in Texas. The inte- grated package was installed by Carson Helicopters in Pennsylvania, witnessed by Sikorsky representatives for the QAB. For FAA certification, Carson plans to offer an augmented suite with the LCX center display and supplemental mission computer that can be retrofitted to State Department aircraft. “The mission computer will do satellite mapping, and Falcon View mission planning using high-resolution satellite images,” noted Pratt. “You can also do more sophisticated remote camera or FLIR sensor work.” The Cobham EFIS accommodates five video inputs. The free-standing LCX display with EuroAvionics RN-7 mission management computer opens more channels to show two independent moving maps, the weather radar and synthetic vision inputs. Based on the RN-6 computer now in the UH-72 Lakota light utility helicopter, the next-generation RN-7 packs 1 terabyte of solid state memory in a ¼ ATR form factor to fit the S-61 avionics rack. “It’s going to be what we’ve provided to Eurocopter on steroids,” said LCX CEO Herb Luspig. “The final configuration is customer-specific.” The S-61 computer can potentially tie an infrared/electro-optical payload on the aircraft to a satcom controller that will steer the airborne sensor to ground-designat- ed targets. Cobham routinely integrates new capabilities into the EFIS based on user inputs, and like other integrators, seeks to blend synthetic vision with enhanced vision. “You get the Holy Grail of situational awareness,” said Pratt. “A service truck or cow wandering onto the field won’t show up in your database. Conversely, the synthetic vision is not limited by atmosphere-obscuring media like rain or snow. The synthetic vision always sees 40 miles ahead of the aircraft. If you blend them together, you eliminate the weaknesses and have just the strengths.” He adds, “The art is how you do that elegantly so it works for the pilots but still gives the pilots the ability to adjust for their preference.” According to Frank Carson, “That’s the true vision of the glass cockpit ... What most companies presented until now is [just] a better display of the instruments. To me, the glass cockpit is to see outside the aircraft when you can’t see outside — to see obstacles, terrain, other aircraft, airports. All these features are possible with the Cobham ... It’s being able to see things you haven’t been able to see before and do things you couldn’t do before.” 20 Avionics Magazine March 2013 www.avionicstoday.com
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