Predator C Flies With Advanced Ground Control Station

Photo courtesy General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc.

By Danielle Lucey



General Atomics announced this week that its Advanced Cockpit Ground Control Station successfully flew a Predator C Avenger aircraft. 



“This flight paired our most advanced GCS with our most advanced aircraft”, says Frank W. Pace, president of the Aircraft Systems Group at General Atomics. “Since 1994, our GCS have amassed over 2 million flight hours. The Advanced Cockpit is the next logical step in GCS progression. Our objective with this GCS is to fully satisfy customer interoperability requirements, enabling any GA-ASI RPA to be flown from the system.” 



The 15 November 2012 flight was an Air Force demonstration showing the cockpit's open architecture. The system has previously flown an MQ-1 Predator, and it is scheduled to fly an MQ-9 Reaper this summer. The station was built to enable interoperability with all Air Force unmanned aircraft. 



“Advanced Cockpit’s wrap-around visual display and multidimensional moving map dramatically increases situational awareness, while the integrated digital checklist decreases pilot workload,” says Jason McDermott, the test pilot who successfully handed off control of the aircraft on a three-hour mission. “The combination of these unique features greatly increases the ease and simplicity of mission planning, reduces pilot workload, thereby increasing flight safety.”