Thales Avionics and Smiths Aerospace will supply their newly certified
Flight Management System for retrofit aboard Air France, America
West and Northwest Airlines A320 series jetliners. The new box
comes with a multifunction control display unit equipped with
a high contrast ratio LCD screen, a five megabyte navigation database
and substantially improved ease of use functionality. Creating,
changing and reading flight plans should be much easier with the
new system.
Smiths long has been known for its FMS engineering expertise,
but some airline pilots carped about its user interface. Thales,
in contrast, has extensive human factors design experience and
has been a technology partner on Airbus aircraft for several years.
More than 15,000 flight hours were accumulated on the new FMS
box last year during development work with Alitalia and Frontier
Airlines.
