nition phase with Suk hoi that startedbefore the contract award and contin-ued afterward .

Program manager Lionel Rouchousesaid the company has around 270 peopleworking full time on the Superjet pro-gram inToulouse. Bordeaux, Paris andelsewhere in France, in Moscow andin

,--_~9._... __-",(Top) Flight deck of the new Sukhoi Superjet 100 regional jet with Thales avion-ics suite was inspired by the cockpit layout of the Airbus A380. (Bottom) One ofthe two systems integration benches used by Thales in Toulouse, France. Onebench was to be moved to Moscow by the end of the year.

France's Th ales, meanwhile, is devel-oping the new regional jet's avionicsunder a $120 million contract signedlast year that covers the specification,design, validation and integration ofthe complete suite through certification,plus the first 50 shipsets of hardware.T he design is the produ ct of a long defi-

By Bernard Fitzsimons

Fast approaching a first flightcurrentl y scheduled for Decem-ber, the Sukhoi Superjet 100is barely a yearawayfrom itsinaugural deliveryto launch

customerAeroflot in November 2008.The develop ment , prod uct ion and

testing efforts areramping up accord-ingly. Alenia Aeronau tica has taken a 25percent stake in Sukhoi Civil AircraftCo. (SCAC) and will set up a joint ven-ture in Italy to provide marketing andafter-sales support outside Russia andthe Comm onwealt h of IndependentStates. Boeing has expanded its long-standing consultancy role. Airframesare underassembly at Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the Russian Far East andundergoing tests by TsAGI, the Cent ralAerohydrod ynamic Institut e, at Mos-cow's Zhukovskyair base. The PowerJetjoint venture of Snecma and Russia'5NPO Satu rn is building and testingSaM146 engines in Rybinsk.

32 Avionic s Magazine October 2007 1111 www.avionicsmagazine.com

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Rouchouse said.Both the system integration benches in

Toulouse and the electron ic bird in Mos-cow use real flight deck equipment, and

that the aircraft is manufactured eighthours' flying time from Moscow. Ano thercomplication is the Moscow softwarejoint venture that is providing the soft-ware for the data concentrator and someauto mat ic cod ing and verificat ion onthe cockpit displays. "It's a difficultyhaving our customer being the customerand the supplier in the same program,"

The Sukhoi Superjet 100isthe first aussianairliner designed to meet Western certilicationstandards, and isconsidered key tothegrowthof Ru~ian aerospace.

The aircraftisbeing builtbySukhoi CivilAircraft Co. (SCAC), the civil division of Russia 'sfamedSukhoi Co., and Italy's AleniaAerospace,a 25-percentstakeholderin SCAC.

Designed to FAR 25, European JAR 25and RussianAP-25 requirements for transport-cat-egory aircraft, theSuperjet will beavailable in 75- and 95-seat versions, in bothbasic andlong-haul configuration.itwill compete against theAntonov 148 and comparable Embraer andBombard ier regional aircraft.

As ofAugust, SCACreported 71 firmorders for the Superiet, including 30 byAeroflot; 15bythe ausstanairii ne allianceAirUnion; 10 by Financial Leasing Co. , of Ru~ia ; and 6 bysussianairli ne Dalavia.The first Westerncustomer, announced this year at the Paris Air Show, is ItAliAirlines, based in Pescara, Italy.ltAli hasordered 10as-seat, long-range variants.

. ~ . .

propose a predictive windshcar weatherradar. Optional features include singleor dual high frequency (HF) radios,dualGoodrich electronic flight bags (EFB)and a printer, among others.

Principal suppliers include RockwellCollins, VORIDME navigation; Hon-eywell, inertial referencesystem (fRS)and communicatio ns managementunit (CMU); Teledyne Controls, Inte-grated Flight Data Management Unit(IFDMU); and MPC Products Corp.,Skokie, 11 1. , throttle.

"Thales has to manageall those sub-systems because we have a system integra-tor responsibility," said Rouchouse. "\Vehave to manage more than 17 par tners inNorth America and Europe, so it's a com -plexprogram."

The involvement of staff in Montrealis a legacy of the Bombardier Dash 8/Q400 program that features Thales's firstcompletecommercial flight deck. Theyare handling the legal and contractualaspects , plus purchasing from suppliers inNorth America.

"The same team was involved in theDash 8 program and now in Sukhoi,"Rouchouse said. "So we have a good syn-ergy, but the avionics proposed is morecomplex and a new generation."

Further complications include Russianlegal and customs proceduresand the fact

A3BO InspiredThe avionics arch itecture and night decklayout are derived from those of the Air-bus A380. The high processingcapabilityof the integrated modular avionics atits core saves weight by enabling severalfunctions to be hosted inside the sameprocessor, Rouchou se said. The proces-sors communicate via a dual AvionicsFull Duplex Switched Ethernet that isautomatica lly switched in case of failure.An integrated central maintenance sys-tem provides efficient failure corre lationand troubleshooting.

The night guidance, flightmanage-ment and recording system includes anautoflight control system, flightguid-ancecontrol panel, CMC ElectronicsCMA-9000 night management system(FMS), and flight warning system, plusair data and smart probes and fligh t andvoice recorde rs. Thales provides the flightdeck's five-screen contro l display system,contro l pane ls and the integrated elec-tron ic standby instrument.

Communications. navigation and sur-veillance equipment includes radio navi-gation , radio and audio communication,data link, Honeywell Primus 880 weatherradar, the T2CAS terrain and traffic col-lision avoidance system from the Thal es.L-3 Communications jo int venture ACSS,and Thalesmulti-mode receiver, VHFcommunications and radio a ltimeter.

In total, Rouchou se sa id, the avionicssuite comprises 190 items of equipmentand 90 part numbers, Proposedgrowthoptions includea single head-up display(HUD) and a multimodereceiverwithmicrowave landing system (MLS).Thalesand Sukhoi also are evaluating whether to

Montreal. There are two integrationbenches in Toulouse, one of which is like-ly to be movedto Moscow before the endof the year, and an electronic bird at theSCAC headquarters in Moscow. Thereis also a software development joint ven-ture in Moscow employing more tha n 60SCAC stalT, in addition to the 30 staffThales has at its office in the city.

www.avionicsmagazine.com llli October 2007 Avionics M agazine 33

Thales, Sukhoi Collaboration

Thales has been active in Russiasince predecessor, Sextant Avionique, became involved in theMiG-AT militarytrainer program in 1993.The company has worked withSukhoi since 1994,when itdecided to participate in project 711, which aimed toequip an Su-27 Flanker prototypewith Sextantavionics. .

Subsequent fruits otthat involvement include a 1998 contract to supply the Indian Air ForceSu-30MKI's cockpitdisplay system, plus navigation and identiticationequ ipment.

Undera 2003 contract covering the Royal MalaysianAir Force SU-30MKM,Thales isresponsiblefor providing full interoperability withwesternaircraft, NATOstandardstand-byinstruments, a wide field -of-view holographic HUD, navigation FUR and Damocles targetingpod for full day andnightoperalional capabilities for air-to-airand air-to-ground missions, andcombined interrogator/transponder IFF.

theelectronicbird has a display systemwith wrap-around visuals. Moving one ofthe benches to Moscow will enable Thalesengineersto bemore reactive in investi- .gating problems detected on the bench oron theaircraft itself.

To help ensure the technology usedrepresents the state of the art, Thalcshas recruited a 17-strong panel of pilots,including two of its own pilots and othersfrom AirFrance, its subsidiaries Regional

Integrated Flight Data ManagementUnit supplied by Teledyne Controls

and CityJet, Eurowings, Air Canada,Aerollot and Brussels Airlines.

'T he feedback we have is good:'Rouchouse said. "It's a good design. agood aircraft."

The choiceof the CMA-9000FMS was the result of "a good trade-otT between complexity andprice,"Rouchouse said. The CMA-9000alreadyis installed on some Eurocopterheli-copters and the Pilatus PC-21 militarytrainer, as well as being usedin variousretrolit applications.

StephaneVilleneuve, CMCs director of

salesand marketing for Europe. AsiaandAustralasia, said theThalesselection fortheSuperjet was "verysatisfying and reallyconlinnsourclaims thatthe-9000 is avel)'viablesolution forOEMsaround the world."

The FMS is easilycustomized. "We dosoftware upgrades of the -9000on a veryregularbasis. adding newfunctionalityall the time," Villeneuvesaid. So the sys-tem is readily adaptable when customersrequire special capabilities. It also benefitsfrom the experience of its predecessor. theCMA-900.

"We have a long experience in FMSand everything that comes with it. suchas world-widesupport. andthe man-machine interface has been honed overdecades."Villeneuve said." It's not a solu-tion that just came out with no pedigree.and I think that gives the company cred-ibility for a customer like Thales,"

CMCisdeveloping several new func-tionalitics for the SuperJet 100 application,Villeneuve said. They include vertical navi-gation with performance data, requiredtime of arrival computations.data link,fuelcomputat ion management, interfacesupport fordigitalmaps. radio tuningcapabilities and multi-sensorselection.Somefunctionalities arecompletely new.othersadaptationsof existingfunctionsto complywith specificplatform require-ments, But "the box is already built onstandard interfaces. so from thatperspec-tive it's not a lot of work to adapt the boxto this platform," Villeneuve said.

Thecompanymaintains a singlesoft-ware developmentline inorderto avoid theriskof "orphan programs,"whenan FMSis developedwith a software load for asinglecustomer, neverevolves and remainsona side trackfrom themaindevelopment.

Among the other suppliers, Teledyne

said its IFDMU is a customized versionof the flightdata interface managementunit selected by more than 100 Airbusoperators. Designed to perform flightdata acquisition, aircraft condition moni-toring and data recording, it combinesthe functions of the flightdata interfaceunit used formandatory data acquisition.datamanagement unitused to monitorengine and aircraft condition, and digitalaccess recorder.

Replacing up to three LRUs, theIFDM U will enableoperators to saveweight.wiringand rack space andsignifi-cantlyreduce initialequipment costs.

Integration on theelectronic birdhad ju st started in early August. "But onthe systembench inToulouse we are ontrack. onschedule. so the integration isgood for us," Rouchouse said.

In earlyJuly, SCACpersonnelwereinstallingthe Snecrna-supplied simulatorforthe Superjet's SaM I46 engine in theelectronicbird. Anothersimulatorhas beenoperational at TsAGI sincelast year, andSCAC First Vice President and SuperjetProgram Director IgorVinogradov said thesix pilots trained to fly it so far had alreadyinsisted ona reductionin theflapandslatretractiontime to make iteasierforcrewsto maneuverincomplexEuropean terminalairspace.The results of theintegration werebeing fed back to suppliers, ineluding Lieb-herr Aerospace in Lindenberg. Germany,where the /ly-by-wire /light control systemis being developed.

BrettWells. Thales AerospaceServicesWorldwide director of strategyand busi-ness development. said the company wasin the process of formulating its totalservice offering forboth its customersand themarket. "We areworking onarange of support and services.\\'hich willinclude ouravionics-by-the-hoursupport.These will be based both in Russia andtherestof the world, as is ournetworkofsupport services today."

"It's a veryinteresting program."saidRouchouse. "We have the first integrationwith theequipment. so it's not onlya proj-ect. it's not onlya designdocumentation.

"We have the real product now. It'san interesting phase. butwe have all theflight -test program anddifficulties tocome, so it's not aneasyjourney we facewith the program." m!ID

34 Avionics M agazine October 2007 1111 VvWW.avionicsmagazine.com

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