Avionics Developments Transforming Aircraft Design

There was a time when avionics was very much the poor relation of aircraft design and the various pieces of equipment associated with communications, navigation and warning systems had somehow to be accommodated after the structure of the aircraft had been settled and its performance established.

Those days are now over and in an age when more than half the. The cost of the new European Fighter Aircraft (EFA) will be devoted to avionics, and the situation has actually been reversed. The prime mover in this revolution has been the impact of modern micro-electronics on avionics and the consequent impact of modern avionics on aircraft design.

Phenomenal increases in computing power have meant an improvement in safety, enhanced operational ability, greater operational reliability and a reduction in the actual cost of flying from A to B. Digital systems moreover have brought considerable saving in weight, yet greater flexibility of operation. Though volumes could be written on the growth of avionics, this article concentrates on areas that especially affected equipment for aircraft of the 1990s.

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