Aircraft Maintanence Engineering [AVIONICS SYSTEM]

If we look back a decade or two, we will notice that avionics was just limited to a few black boxes for communication and navigation installed on aircraft. But with passage of time avionics in the field of aviation has undergone a tremendous change. Integrated Digital Avionics as it is, referred to, has blossomed into a third dimension for aerospace vehicles, first two being airframe and engines.

Any new advancement in electronics has tempted the A/C designer to add a new dimension to this avionics package. As a result, the avionics of today encompasses the aircraft flight control (fly by wire) also engine control (fully automatic Digital Electronics control), the integrated flight and fire control, cockpit displays and even utilities management in addition to communication and integrated navigation. Multiple roles are also being carried out in a truly integrated manner through the use of common digital format for data.

This enables avionic systems to share data from a bank of common sensors and data links has permitted additional redundancies in hardware resulting to higher reliability and higher flight safety. Thus multi role aircraft are available with more reliability due to increased role of electronics. This has led to increase in cost of maintenance and manufacture of A/C. We know that avionics of today share 40% of the lost of military A/C and almost 55% of airforce budget.