(Boursier.com) – Selected by Airbus Helicopters, industrial project manager, and the General Armament Directorate (DGA) project owner, to equip the 169 HIL “Guépard” from 2027, the technologies of Thales will provide the three armies with connected and innovative high performance tactical solutions.
Based on a militarization of the Airbus Helicopters H160, the Cheetah will be able to carry out on its own some twenty missions entrusted to the armed forces: reconnaissance missions, fire support, infiltration of special forces or command support for the 80 Cheetahs of the ‘Land army, air-sea combat, protection and support of the naval force, special naval actions, State action at sea for the 49 Cheetahs of the French Navy or airspace surveillance and defense, search and rescue, fire support and intelligence for the 40 Air and Space Army Cheetahs. The joint nature of the HIL thus offers a gain in the training of the crew but also in the replacement of material.
The Cheetah cockpit will be equipped with the FlytX avionics suite, completely redesigned in terms of ergonomics and equipped with the most advanced technologies. Compact, customizable and connected with exceptional operational flexibility, FlytX is the result of 10 years of research in collaboration with pilots. Thanks to its tactile, direct and intuitive interfaces, FlytX improves pilots’ interaction with the cockpit and their understanding of the environment, allowing them to focus effectively on the essential: the mission.
TopOwl Digital Display, the latest addition to the Thales headset range, will complete the range of tools available to pilots by opening them up to the era of augmented reality. Integrating information and videos from sensors, TopOwl allows flight in a degraded virtual environment and facilitates crew cooperation, thus increasing operational capacities.
Benefiting from investments by Thales and the Directorate General of Armament (DGA), the AirMaster C compact fixed panel radar, weighing less than 20 kg, enables the Armed Forces to gain endurance in the area and speed up patrol. The potential for simultaneous detection of targets at long and very short range alleviates the workload of the crew by maintaining extensive surveillance at all times and in any environment. AirMaster C covers all maritime, land and air surveillance missions. Its scalability and self-learning capacity will allow armies to classify and share a significant volume of data.
The protection of the crew will be ensured by a self-protection system optimized for the Cheetah. Threats will be detected from the electromagnetic domain to the optical domain and can be deceived by automatic countermeasures. Self-protection strategies will be established in advance by expert units of the Armed Forces, using a programming and mission analysis infrastructure. Electronic Warfare’s sensitive data management capacity as well as competitiveness, performance and scalability led to the choice of the Thales architecture based on the CATS-150, which has already been proven on board NH-90s.
To meet the requirements of its multi-mission role for the Land, Air and Space armies and the French Navy, the HIL Guépard will be able to count on an advanced connectivity suite providing it with a broad spectrum of services. secure communication. This will include the software radio from the CONTACT program associated with the compact aeronautical encryptor which will allow its integration into the SCORPION bubble for the Army, connectivity with other Air Force and Air Force platforms. Space and NATO interoperability up to Secret level. A resilient Micro-TMA broadband link capacity as well as interoperability with 4G / LTE networks will allow an extension towards hyper-connected operational missions. In addition, a radio navigation suite and new compact IFF friend-foe identification equipment will complement HIL’s capabilities.
The HIL Guépard will also be fitted with a Thales multi-constellation GPS receiver, Galileo GPS, the latest generation TopStar M, offering the best capacities for optimal operation of the navigation system.