Thales selects Barco Multipurpose Control Display Units for French Forces' aircraft upgrades

Avionics display specialist Barco has won a contract from Thales to supply Multipurpose Control Display Units for the Lockheed C-130H and Dassault Atlantique 2 fleet operated by the French Armed Forces. The agreement fits within a major technology upgrade program that will equip both aircraft types with a new Thales TopDeck avionics suite. Deliveries will start later this year.

Under the agreement, Thales will integrate more than 100 state-of-the-art CDMS-3000 units into the C-130 cargo planes used by the French Air Force and the Dassault Atlantique 2 patrol aircraft deployed by the French Navy. These airframes are not the first for which Thales chose Barco's CDMS-3000 solution. Earlier, the same Control Display Unit already made its debut aboard the next generation Sikorsky S-76D civil helicopter.

The CDMS-3000 chosen for this project is a next-generation Control Display Unit featuring a 3 x 4 inch AMLCD panel with VGA resolution. Equipped with the latest display technology, the CDMS-3000 combines high brightness and contrast with compact dimensions, low weight and excellent energy efficiency. These characteristics allow system integrators to significantly save on modification costs when integrating the unit into retrofit cockpit environments, such as the ATL2 or C130. Another plus of the new CDMS-3000 is its excellent cost/performance ratio along with Barco's long-standing reputation for being a reliable and independent technology supplier. Barco's CDMS-3000 is compatible with the ARINC429 and/or MIL-STD-1553 interfaces and supports Ethernet, mass memory and USB memory front loading.