Aircraft Systems Classifications

4Avionic Systems

This chapter deals with those systems of the aircraft that give the basic aircraft a purpose, a means of being useful, and performing a mission. Avionics perform the roles of world‐wide navigation and provide the air crew with all the aids and information required to do this.

Many of the avionic systems are common in function to both commercial and military roles, although the means of developing and testing them may differ. In some instances, the systems are specifically applicable to military use only and this will be identified. Those systems that have a role applicable to military missions will be described in Chapter 5 (Figure 4.1).

The avionic systems are common to both civil and military aircraft. Not all aircraft types, however, will be fitted with the complete set listed below. The age and role of the aircraft will determine the exact suite of systems. The majority of the systems collect, process, transfer, and respond to data. Any energy transfer is usually performed by a command to a vehicle system. An example of this is change to aircraft attitude demanded by the flight management system (FMS), which will be performed by the auto‐pilot and flight control systems (FCS).

Although both aircraft vehicle and avionics systems make extensive use of modern digital technology, processors, and data buses, these technologies are exploited in quite different ways. The fundamental differences between the tasks that each are performing for the aircraft leads ...