Technology update
New life for older Airbuses and MOZAIC flies on
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With advances in cockpit technology and avionics systems, updating older aircraft that have substantial "life" remaining makes economic sense. Airbus Industrie is offering a new electronic retrofit for the analog cockpits of the A300B2 and A300B4 airliners. The company states that the retrofit will allow the aircraft to meet new navigation requirements, obtain fuel and time savings from new routings, as well as enhancing their economic life. Primary changes are a result of ICAO and other national authority initiatives, including greater focus on Global Navigation Satellite Systems.
The retrofit includes installation of two Global Navigation and Landing Units (GNLU) and two liquid crystal Navigation Displays (ND) produced by Rockwell-Collins. The GNLU includes a Flight Management System (FMS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) capability, neither of which was available when the original A300B2 and A300B4 analog cockpits were designed. The FMS and GPS functions are accessed through a Multi-Purpose Control and Display Unit (MCDU) installed on the center pedestal.
According to the company, the upgrade will alleviate restrictions that newly evolved air traffic environments can create for older aircraft. It is almost 25 years since Air France took delivery of the first A300 and more than 200 of the aircraft are still flying with some 40 operators across the world, many converted to the freight role, which is extending their working life still further.
Meanwhile, Airbus has announced that the current phase of its airborne atmospheric ozone research project MOZAIC (already detailed by Aerospace Engineering and originally due to be completed at the end of 1998) has been extended for another year. The project is examining how aircraft emissions affect the Earth's upper atmosphere, with collected data used by atmospheric modelers. The work has helped develop "the current understanding that aircraft do not contribute to the degradation of the Earth's ozone layer," reports Airbus.
Measurements for the MOZAIC database are taken on average every five seconds of a flight by in-service Airbus airliners. The European Union-funded program involves five A340 aircraft, with equipment massing 265 lb. The program
is allowing specialists to build up a "horizontal" map of the atmosphere to correlate with an established "vertical" map produced by such established techniques as balloon flights. At the end of this year, new equipment capable of sampling a wider range of data is expected to be available and may be used for a third phase of the MOZAIC program.
Stuart Birch
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