Goodbye, dials: Digital avionics coming to aging US Air Force C-130s
By Stephen Losey
Oct 18, 11:04 AM
The C-130H's avionics modernization will replace its old analog gauges with digital multifunctional displays, as well as an array of other navigation and flight upgrades. (Samuel King Jr./U.S. Air Force)
WASHINGTON — The days of analog cockpit gauges, clunky navigation systems and pilots lugging around laptops are numbered for the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard’s C-130H Hercules transport aircraft.
The U.S. Air Force is transitioning most of its aging Guard and Reserve C-130Hs to a new, almost-entirely-digital avionics and navigation system that it hopes will dramatically simplify how aircrews fly them, the service said Tuesday.
The new system, dubbed Avionics Modernization Program Increment 2, will update the C-130′s cockpit with six interconnected digital displays. These large glass multifunctional displays will replace all but three of the old analog gauges, which date back to the C-130′s nearly 60-year-old original design.
“This is much larger than just a software or hardware upgrade,” said Maj. Jacob Duede, an experimental test pilot for the 417th Flight Test Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base. “It’s reconstructing and modernizing the aircraft’s entire cockpit area.”
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2023/10/18/goodbye-dials-digital-avionics-coming-to-aging-us-air-force-c-130s/
