Carson Helicopters of Perkasie, Pennsylvania and Sagem Avionics, Inc. of Grand Prairie, Texas announce
plans for significant upgrades to the Sikorsky S-61 helicopter. The new enhancements include new composite
main rotor blades, SAGEM cockpit displays and SAGEM PA 155 automatic flight control system (AFCS).
Additionally, two SAGEM F201 attitude heading reference systems (AHRS) will provide aircraft attitude and
heading information to the cockpit display and AFCS.
"Glass Cockpit"
The new integrated “glass” cockpit includes five SAGEM
ICDS-10 active matrix liquid crystal displays. The ICDS-10
displays, each with a 10.4 inch viewing area will include two
primary flight displays (PFD) and 3 multifunction displays (MFD).
The displays will serve as replacements for a majority of the
older style “steam gauges” and will provide the aircrew with a
wealth of versatility and selectability in presentation of aircraft
flight, navigation, and engine system information and monitoring.
A New Attitude
The aircraft attitude and heading information for the
S-61 will now transmitted to the AFCS computers and PFDs via
the dual SAGEM F201 attitude/heading reference systems
(AHRS) with added inputs from the air data sensor, and dual
magnetometers. These new digital, solid state units allow for
elimination of the older and sometimes short lived spinning
mass vertical gyros and directional gyros and their associated
sensors.
Stability Upgrade
The centerpiece of the new upgrade program for the
S-61 is the SAGEM PA 155 automatic flight control system (AFCS).
This is the same series AFCS certified in the Eurocopter SA 332
Super Puma helicopter. It was most recently FAA certified for
retrofit on the Erickson S-64 Air Crane. The AFCS is a 3-axis AFCS
with duplex architecture consisting of two AFCS computers and
two attitude/heading reference systems (AHRS). The duplex
feature gives the system a fail-passive and fail-operational
capability after any first failure. The AFCS provides for attitude
retention and automatic heading hold in a hover. For cruise
flight modes the pilot can opt for basic attitude retention or
select to couple to heading or GPS, and altitude or airspeed for
true “hands off” flight.
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