PARIS, 21 June 2011. Military aircraft designers at Embraer SA in São José dos Campos, Brazil, needed advanced flight displays for 14 EMB-312 Tucano single-engine turboprop trainer aircraft that Embraer is upgrading for the Colombian air force beginning in 2012. They found their solution from the Cobham plc Commercial Systems segment in Mineral Wells, Texas.Cobham announced the military avionics contract with Embraer today at the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget, France. Cobham will provide an integrated avionics suite with large-format synthetic visionavionics displays, flight management, integrated hazard alerting, integrated engine displays, and master caution system for the Colombian Tucano aircraft the Embraer is upgrading.Cobham's Tucano avionics provide growth options such as a digital autopilot with 3-D autoflight capability and automatic stall and overspeed protection, as well as simulated tactical radar training using virtual scenarios, Cobham officials say.
The Cobham avionics upgrades to the Colombian Tucanos will extend the life of the aircraft, and will provide capabilities that now are unavailable in that model, says Roger Smith, general manager of the Cobham Commercial Systems facility in Mineral Walls, Texas.
The EMB-312 Tucano is a two-seat, single-turboprop aircraft that military air forces around the world use for primary aircraft training. The Tucano pilots sit one behind the other. Cobham's avionics system offers basic flight instrumentation and military heads-up display symbology, up-front mission control, and menu-driven systems.
For more information contact Cobham Commercial Systems online at www.cobham.com, Embraer at www.embraer.com, or the Paris Air Show at www.paris-air-show.com.
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
