A team of Bristow engineers are developing a series of kits allowing the fitment of TCAS II (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) to a wider number of aircraft.
The company's Technical Services division installed TCAS II on a helicopter for the first time in 2008 in conjunction with Rockwell Collins and is now offering the system for fitment on other models of aircraft.
The system is in use on the AS332L1 and has been certified on the Sikorsky S-92. The department is now working on a kit for the Sikorsky S-76C+ and C++ and is investigating potential fitment onto the Eurocopter EC225, although Eurocopter is working on its own TCAS II system.
The company decided to fit the system after a series of air proximity incidents over the North Sea. With TCAS II, pilots are now more aware of traffic around them - if the system detects possible traffic confliction, it will urge the pilot to climb or descend as appropriate.
'As a company, we are always looking to improve our flight safety,' explained Keith Woodgate, production manager at Bristow Technical Services, speaking to Shephard at the Helitech 2011 exhibition in Duxford.
'We led the development of systems such as HUMS for oil and gas helicopters, and that is now a mandatory requirement on offshore helicopters, so its not impossible to imagine that systems like TCAS II could eventually go the same way.'
Fitting the system to the aircraft is no easy feat. As well as the cockpit interface, the system also has two large antennas which need to be fitted on the topside and underside of the aircraft. In the cockpit, rather than integrate TCAS directly into the avionics system, which would be extremely costly, the TCAS II kit uses a separate display.
On the S-92 because pilots were not keen on the technical team drilling holes in their clean instrument panel the engineers decided to remove the approach plate clip holders at the edge of the cockpit and fit the TCAS II panel there.
On the S-76, the engineers have found space in the instrument panel to fit the traffic display.
The TCAS II modification is one of a number of systems developed by the Technical Services division, which completed changes to the Bell 412s being used by 84 Squadron in Cyprus. The company also created automatic float deployment systems for the AS332 and EC225 and came up with the idea for rear view mirrors to be installed to give pilots a visual inspection of the engines in flight.
The company is not the only one to be developing a TCAS for helicopters. Bond Aviation Group has also created a kit based on the Honeywell TCAS II for use on the AS332L2 Super Puma.
Tony Osborne, Duxford
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