Rockwell Collins helps pave the way for new air traffic system

It works over Pago Pago and the North Pole.

Those are just some of the places “proofing flights” for the KC-135 Global Air Traffic Management System took Rockwell Collins engineers in the past decade.

Rockwell Collins has a key role in creating a New Air Space Order as the days of total reliance on human air traffic controllers and radar come to an end.

Technology known as CNS/ATM - for communication, navigation and surveillance/air traffic management - will be required for many types of flights within the next decade. It will revolutionize air travel with its precision, driven by wireless streams of data between aircraft and ground stations linked to satellite navigation systems.

It's a change non-aviators, by and large, won't notice - except that the flights they use to reach a destination will be more direct routes, saving fuel expenses, and aircraft spaced closer together, reducing holding times.

The change is being driven by the International Civilian Aviation Organization, a division of the United Nations, and national aviation authorities such as the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States.

Cedar Rapids-based Rockwell Collins Inc. has been a nexus in the transformation. The company developed CNS technology for commercial aircraft in the leading-edge cockpit electronics it provides to aircraft makers, such as its recent Proline Fusion avionics system.

The company has adapted those commercial offerings to the more rigorous needs of military aircraft, saving time and money in developing military technology, according to Mike Jones, senior director of tanker and transport systems.

“Meeting the CNS mandate is the heart of civilian systems that are fielded now,” Jones said.

On Sept. 21, Rockwell Collins completed one of the most monumental CNS projects to date - the $750 million KC-135 GATM (global air traffic management) project. A total of 417 U.S. Air Force KC-135 refueling tankers, most of them approaching 50 years old, were upgraded with new aviation electronics to allow CNS operations.

The project, awarded in 1996, was completed three years ahead of its 10-year completion target date, earning  accolades from the Air Force and one of Aviation Week magazine's top annual awards for aviation technology.

The work was performed at a Boeing Aerospace facility in San Antonio, Texas, but most of  the technology was developed by Rockwell Collins engineers based in Cedar Rapids. They worked closely with KC-135 flight crews to create it, according to Ron Morey, a business development specialist for Rockwell Collins and KC-135 pilot.

Rockwell Collins was selected by Boeing to develop key systems, including the CNS system for the next generation of flying tankers - the KC-46 from Boeing - which was chosen by the Air Force in February.

Replacing the full fleet of Stratotankers will take decades, however, and it's been estimated that the last KC-135 pilots haven't even been born.

The award in July of a $160 million contract to upgrade the Air Force's fleet of 59 KC-10 aerial tankers with CNS systems completed a kind of tanker avionics trifecta for Rockwell Collins. The KC-10s, based on McDonnell Douglas' DC-10, will be upgraded at a ARINC Inc. facility outside of Oklahoma City.

The company also is under contract to Brazilian aerospace company Embraer to provide the company's Proline Fusion flight deck - originally developed for commercial aircraft with CNS capabilities - for its new KC-390 tanker.

Aerial refueling tankers are critical to the mission of the Air Force because bombers, fighters, reconnaissance and other aircraft so often can't be safely landed and refueled anywhere near a military theater, explained Joseph Rohret, who handles business development for Rockwell Collins.

The KC-135 GATM upgrade proved valuable during the recent conflict in Libya, Rohret said, enabling the refueling tankers that crossed European air space to take the most direct and fastest routes.

Nearly a decade ago, Rohret participated as a pilot in proofing flights for the aircraft converted for CNS in the KC-135 GATM program. It was necessary to use the most densely traveled routes, such as those over Europe.

Rohret said the system's ease of use made a big impression. Once on a transatlantic flight, the KC-135 he was flying was rerouted to the Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany from the Stanwick Airport due to bad weather, with virtually no voice communication and only minutes of delay.

The system displays the flight path, other aircraft in the air space, and even weather information that can be useful.

“There's no more, ‘they can't see what you're doing' type of thing,” Rohret said.

He pointed out that Rockwell Collins worked with the Airlift Mission Command to create the digital message codes that pass through the system, telling the air traffic control system things such as when the flight will need to stop for refueling.

European aviation authorities have taken the lead in implementing CNS, Morey said, because European air space is more densely traveled. They have set a 2020 implementation deadline.

Testing of the CNS systems and other electronics for the upgrades is performed in a simulation lab at Rockwell Collins's Building 192, 1205 Continental Place, where a flight deck very similar to the one pilots use interacts with other aircraft systems.

For the KC-10 project, Rockwell Collins is retrofitting an actual cockpit from a McDonell Douglas DC-10 aircraft removed from an aircraft in the Mojave Desert and trucked to a Rockwell Collins building. Using a real cockpit helps engineers to see how the equipment could be installed in the aircraft.

Upgrading the KC-135 and KC-10 tankers is an expansion of Rockwell Collins's expertise in upgrading cockpit electronics in huge military cargo jets such as the C-130, Jones said.