At this week's Heli-Expo Rogerson Kratos gave demonstration flights in its in-development UH-60A Black Hawk (N683DN), the first fully digital cockpit modernization upgrade of a UH-60A to fly. The aircraft made its first flight on January 27 from Fort Worth Meacham field, flying for two hours. “We have attempted to look where Sikorsky is going in the future and taken some features that Sikorsky has recommended and gone from there,” explained Michael Rogerson, founder and CEO of Rogerson Aircraft. “The equipment itself is a heritage of equipment we certified on the Bell 412EPI, which is used in a number of missions, and prior to that the Bell 429.” The ultimate lineage is a program started in the early 2000s for the Saudis and the Turkish coast guard.
According to the company, more than 2,000 Black Hawks and variants with analog cockpits are still flying in all U.S. military services, many U.S. government agencies and more than 25 foreign countries, a huge potential market by any measure. “We’re looking for military and para-military applications,” Rogerson said.
The Rogerson Kratos open-architecture cockpit replicates the UH-60M cockpit to help facilitate training and interoperability. Current operators of the UH-60A and L can upgrade in their own country, or obtain reset UH-60 Model A helicopters with digital cockpit modernization already installed. The company’s integrated upgrade replaces factory analog gauges with electronic instrument flat panel displays and promises greater situational awareness, reduced pilot workload and increased mission safety.
The Rogerson Kratos engine electronics unit operates with GE 700, 701C and 701D engines, contributing to operator flexibility. Replacing obsolete and limited warfighter mission capabilities with a digital cockpit system is cost effective and also meets future Black Hawk mission requirements.
“We’ve made it [the cockpit modernization] our next-generation offering, in that it has an interface with a lot of potential improvements, such as systems for degraded-visibility environments, being able to get a 360-degree of the environment of the helicopter,” CEO Rogerson added. “Our many years and flight hours of providing avionics for the twin-engine helicopter industry includes a significant number of important industry firsts, such as certifying the industry's first flat-panel primary flight display EFIS and EICAS in a helicopter. This Black Hawk application is the culmination of all that experience."
Operating through a wide temperature environment, possessing superior optical performance and designed with an extra-wide-range viewing angle for cross-cockpit viewing, the Rogerson Kratos "smart" multifunction displays are compliant with current night vision imaging system standards and other critical information and navigation requirements. Features include 3-D digital map, advanced hover symbology, integrated FLIR and embedded maintenance pages to configure optional equipment and monitor sensors.
There are four Black Hawks in the cockpit modernization development program. Delivery of customer cockpit upgrades is expected to begin this year, and could increase to three per month by 2020. The system will be compliant with the FAA and EASA 2020 air traffic management requirements, allowing the aircraft access to military and civilian airspace of the U.S. and Europe without waiver.
Based in Irvine, Calif., Rogerson Kratos has 25 years of experience supplying helicopter flight displays for numerous helicopters, including the Bell 412, 412EPI, 427, 429, 430, Agusta 109, AB412 and Sikorsky S-61 and S-76.