Rockwell Collins Brings Innovative Avionics to Bristow Helicopters for UK SAR Program

March 03, 2015

-

Rockwell Collins’ newest technologies for helicopters will be playing a key role in advancing search and rescue services being provided by Bristow Helicopters Ltd on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency for the UK’s search and rescue (SAR) program, commencing in April. Rockwell Collins’ flight decks are featured on the new fleet of specially commissioned SAR aircraft, including 11 Sikorsky S-92s and 11 AgustaWestland AW189 helicopters.

“We congratulate Bristow Helicopters for bringing new levels of situational awareness and safety to the U.K. search and rescue program with these state-of-the-art helicopter technologies,” said Troy Brunk, vice president and general manager of Airborne Solutions for Rockwell Collins. “This program will be the first to utilize our HeliSure flight situational awareness capabilities, such as Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance and synthetic vision, as well as the latest night vision technologies.”

The avionics solutions provided by Rockwell Collins on these helicopters will enable Bristow’s SAR pilots to fly with greater safety and confidence in even the most extreme environmental conditions.

Sikorsky S-92

• Avionics support the latest night vision goggle (NVG) technology and is one of the first all-glass cockpits to receive a European certification for night vision use.
• Features Rockwell Collins MFD-268P2B display, offering expanded optical and processing performance and growth to future mission capabilities.

AgustaWestland AW189

• Features four MFD-2810 multifunction displays, Rockwell Collins’ most recent and largest cockpit display for commercial helicopters. These displays are also NVG compatible.
• HeliSure™ integrated Helicopter-Terrain Awareness Warning System standard, with Helicopter-Synthetic Vision System optional.
• Rockwell Collins’ helicopter cockpit display system, developed in close collaboration with AgustaWestland, features an open-system architecture that enables tight coupling of the Rockwell Collins primary flight and navigation applications with the AgustaWestland flight management system and Automatic Flight Control Systems, to fully integrate key SAR patterns and other mission capabilities.

“Bristow Helicopters and Rockwell Collins have a history of working together to bring innovations to the commercial helicopter market,” says John Cloggie, vice president operations transformation and chief technical officer at Bristow Group. “Defining the specification and delivering high quality avionics solutions on these SAR aircraft is a real differentiator in the market today.”

Source : Rockwell Collins