THE UNDENIABLE JOY OF G
‘Joy’ is not a word one normally associates with helicopter
upgrades. But we talked to several operators who enthusiastically
endorse upgrading from analog to digital glass instruments.
Talk to people who have upgraded their rotorcraft from analog ‘steam gauges’ to all-digital ‘glass cockpits’ , and their enthusiasm brings the J-word to mind time and again. The improvements in performance, ease of use, and maintenance are stunning; as the following stories clearly attest.
By James Careless
Glass Cockpit Just Part of Transformed Bell 212
Located in Sudbury, Canada, Day Aviation flies a wide range of missions. “We do everything from power line work and moving poles to
mining, forestry and firefighting,” says Chief Pilot John Van Zon. They
fly above a rugged, barren landscape—one that doubled as the Moon
for ground-training the Apollo astronauts!
To help with the work, Day Aviation acquired a 1980’s Bell 212
medium helicopter. But this 212 is as similar to a stock model as
a 1970s DeLorean is to the souped-up DeLorean time machine
from the ‘Back to the Future’ movies. Instead of its original twin
engines, this Bell 212 has one; a highly reliable Honeywell Lycoming
T5317BCV. And instead of analog ‘steam gauges’ , its cabin is fitted
with a Sagem glass cockpit installed by Vector Aerospace. The three
LCD displays are mounted in ‘portrait’ mode, integrating the full
range of the 212’s operations onto easy-to-see monitors.
“There’s no problem of parallax with digital controls, unlike analog; you get the same reading no matter where you are in the cockpit,”
says Van Zon. “I also like the fact that the digital gauges change color whenever the system is approaching a threshold, turning yellow
for caution and red for limits. This ensures that you are alerted to what’s happening, even when you are looking out the window.” Mean-
while, switching to the Sagem platform has improved fuel monitoring. “In the old system, you could only get a sense of how much fuel
you had using an analog gauge,” he says. “With the digital system, we can monitor it by the pound, and track our burn rate visually over
time as we fly.”
For Day Aviation, using an updated Bell 212 has proven to be a sound business investment. “We can do more with this 212 than we
could with a stock model, and it is easier to fly and maintain,” Van Zon says. “Granted, we had to put some lead weights in the nose to
counteract the mass we lost when we removed the analog gauges and AC inverters. But I’d rather deal with a lead weight than a steam
gauge at overhaul!”
