Tactical Air Support Inc. is outfitting its F-5 supersonic fighter aircraft with a Garmin integrated flight deck and anticipates first flight with the new technology will be later this year.
The integrated flight deck consists of an open architecture design that includes a G3000 flight display and dual Garmin touchscreen controllers.
“We are excited to work with TacAir as the G3000 system in the F-5 adds to the growing adoption of a tandem integrated flight deck from Garmin,” Carl Wolf, vice president of aviation marketing and sales at Garmin, says in a statement. “We look forward to supporting their operations in the F-5 with a comprehensive avionics upgrade that provides them with the best-in-class flight deck technology available on the market.”
The F-5 provides simulated air-to-air combat training, close-air support training, tactics development and evaluation support. The company uses the F-5 in an aggressor training role, and the upgraded system economically evolves the jets into an advanced tactical fleet with sensor and system capabilities like current fighters.
Selecting commercial-off-the-shelf hardware and software will allow the customer to take advantage of technological advances, cost savings and rapid procurement. A COTS solution also allows for reduced development time, faster integration of new technology and lower life-cycle costs.
“TacAir conducted an industry-wide search for avionics and display options to support ADAIR and training contracts,” says Archie Rippeto, air operations vice president at TacAir. “The Garmin solution gave us an outstanding solution to support not only our current requirements, but also provided the ability to integrate future requirements – our pilots can’t wait to get this cockpit on the range.”
The new integrated flight deck interfaces into the F-5’s existing mission computer, enabling advanced mapping, tactical radio capabilities and radar display. The open architecture design allows for future upgrades without impacting the jet’s avionics.
The night vision goggle-compatible G3000 contains synthetic vision technology blending an “out-the-window” view of surroundings on the primary flight display, the statement reads. Additional features include a terrain awareness and warning system, global automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast traffic and weather and a video input.