INTEGRATED COCKPIT FOR A-129

The Agusta A-129 is a compact and lightweight tandem cockpit combat helicopter under development for multimission usage with a full complement of electronic aircraft control and ASE equipment. Weight, size, and mission requirements for the A-129 mandated an integrated system approach for the crew/cockpit interface design. Instead of the usual multitude of cockpit controls, indicators, gauges, and lights, the primary crew interface is a single multifunction keyboard and one or more multifunction CRT display units. This cockpit design approach imposed unusual constraints upon the system architecture to overcome the inherent information access limitations of a data input/output window that was restricted by the available space. This paper describes the conceptual approach and resulting design of the A-129 cockpit with the intent to enhance the development of cockpit standardization.