Avionics

Avionics is a portmanteau which literally means aviation electronics. In essence it comprises all electronic systems designed for use on an aircraft. At a basic level this comprises communications, navigation and the display and management of multiple systems. more...

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It also comprises the literally hundreds of systems that are fitted to aircraft to meet individual roles. These can be as simple as a search light for a police helicopter or as complicated as the tactical system for an Airborne Early Warning platform. Avionics also refers to the electronics on artificial satellites and spacecraft.

The study of avionics and its impact on aerospace technology has grown at an amazing rate. Initially the ancillary part of an aircraft, avionics has, for many aircraft, become the sole reason for its existence. Increasingly, military aircraft become the means of placing powerful and sensitive sensors into a tactical environment.

History

The term avionics did not gain any credence or general use until the early 1970s. Up to this point instruments, radios, radar, fuel systems, engine controls and radio navigation aids had all formed individual and often mechanical systems.

In the 1970s avionics was born. This was mostly driven by military need rather than civil airliner development (the cold war). A large number of aircraft had become flying sensors platforms, and making large amounts of electronic equipment work together had become the new challenge. Today, avionics as used in military aircraft almost always forms the biggest part of any development budget. Aircraft like the F-15E and the now retired F-14 have roughly 80 percent of their budget spent on avionics. Most modern helicopters now have budget splits of 60/40 in favour of avionics. (F-22?)

The civilian market has also seen a massive growth in cost of avionics. Flight control systems (fly-by-wire) and new navigation needs brought on by tighter airspaces, have pushed up development costs accordingly. The major change has been the recent boom in consumer flying. As more people begin to use planes as their primary method of transportation, more elaborate methods of controlling aircraft safely in these high restrictive airspaces have been invented. Whilst the nature of civil aircraft means that avionics is almost always confined to the cockpit, the budgets and development made in the civil market has for the first time started to influence the military.

Main categories

Avionics, like electronics, is a massive subject that does not easily lend itself to simple categorisation. The headings below try to allocate areas of interest, from which you can delve deeper into the subject areas.

Aircraft avionics

The cockpit of any aircraft is the most obvious location for avionics. It is also the most contentious and difficult. Systems that allow the aircraft to fly safely or have direct control over the aircraft are all directly controlled by the pilot. These safety critical systems and the items that support them are all referred to as aircraft avionics. Honeywell is the leading market leader in flight avionics.

Read more at Wikipedia.org