Flying over the Alps
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Hermann describes two flight-related applications, one involving an around-the-globe flight on solar power.
In Switzerland getting from here to there always involves mountains. That is why Switzerland has the highest density of tunnels through mountains for road and railway traffic. Flying over the mountains is another possibility. The airplanes cannot be too large because there is not much flat land to build airstrips on.
Pilatus, a maker of turbine powered business aircraft (Switzerland), has been building small aircraft for more than 70 years. Pilatus is the global leader in single-engine turboprop aircraft. Its planes serve commercial traffic and as training planes for military pilots. The company’s model PC-21 (21st century trainer) is its newest training plane. An initial batch of six completely assembled planes has been transported inside one Antonov freight plane from Zurich to Perth in Western Australia. The planes belong to the Singapore Air Force, which has its training grounds at a military airport outside Perth. The Swiss Air Force is also using PC-21s for pilot training.
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| Figure 1: From pilatus-aircraft.com: "The PC-21 is a single engine, low-wing swept monoplane with a stepped tandem cockpit. The primary structure is aluminium and elements of the secondary structure are made of composite material. The performance, handling and wing loading place the PC-21 in a class beyond the reach of any other turboprop training aircraft. Digital avionics, based on powerful open architecture computers, maximize the value extracted from each training sortie." Also - top of page (courtesy Pilatus): A turboprop PC-21 from Pilatus (Switzerland) navigates the Alps. |
The Pilatus PC-21 (Figure 1) is a single-turboprop advanced trainer with a tandem cockpit (student in-front/instructor behind). It features a birdstrike-resistant glass canopy, three large color liquid crystal displays, two Head-Up Displays (HUDs), Hands on Throttle and Stick (HOTAS) controls, and zero-zero ejection seats for student and instructor. Table 1 (below) lists some of the PC-21 technical specifications. The cockpit avionics can be “split” so that the instructor can simulate in-flight training conditions on the student’s display such as:
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Table 1: The PC-21 turboprop from Pilatus includes features enabling jet-like performance for training applications. (click graphic to zoom by 2.7x) |
- Data degradation
- Datalink management
- Simulated electronic warfare
- Tactical situational display
- Simulated non-flight-safety-critical system failures
- Synthetic air-to-air radar target generation
The PC-21 uses a Packaged COTS (PCOTS) computer system (MPMC 9350) from Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing (CWCEC), which houses four 3U CompactPCI boards. Each of the conduction-cooled DCP-124(P) SBCs or carrier boards can hold a PMC mezzanine card equipped with ARINC-429 or MIL-STD-1553 or graphic interfaces. The CPUs use PowerPC 7448 microprocessors for real-time operation. The PCOTS chassis meets DO-160E requirements (environmental conditions). Software is split into critical and noncritical sections.
The PC-21 was certified in accordance with the U.S. Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR), Part 23, and it has been supplemented by more relevant regulations such as U.S. DoD MIL-STD and UK MOD DEF-STD regulations for specific areas like handling qualities, fatigue (damage tolerance), and birdstrike.
Around the world on solar power
Swiss aviation has some other innovative entrepreneurs as well. The Piccard family of Switzerland is known for their underwater explorations. Bertrand Piccard, who flew around the world in a balloon, is preparing to fly around the world on solar power only. On June 26 this year he presented the experimental plane HB-SIA (Solar Impulse A) at its rollout on Duebendorf Airport near Zurich with many VIPs present, including Moritz Leuenberger, CEO of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The next version HB-SIB will be used to fly around the world (tentatively scheduled for 2012) with power from photovoltaic cells and energy stored in lithium-polymer batteries. These batteries cannot store enough electrical power for a full night’s flight, so the plane will climb to extreme heights, much higher than any Swiss mountain, and glide most of the night without using any battery power.
For more information, contact Hermann at hstrass@opensystemsmedia.com.
