A critical design review of equipment for a digital cockpit upgrade to U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters has been completed, Northrop Grumman reports.

The scalable, fully integrated and open architecture-based cockpit design will replace older analog gauges with digital electronic instrument displays in the upgraded aircraft, which is designated UH-60V.

Northrop Grumman, maker of the upgraded cockpit equipment, conducted the review with the U.S. Army Prototype Integration Facility, and prime contractor Redstone Defense Systems.

"Our highly affordable cockpit solution will give customers greater flexibility than ever before by enabling avionics upgrades with or without the original equipment manufacturer's involvement," said Ike Song, vice president, Mission Solutions, Northrop Grumman's Land & Avionics C4ISR Division. "Completion of this milestone validates our approach and means that we are one major step closer to fielding advanced capabilities for the warfighter through a truly integrated cockpit solution."

The successful CDR demonstrated the maturity of the equipment design and its transition to the fabrication and integration phase of the program.

Key elements of the system assessed were the open, scalable design using model-based engineering and a fully partitioned software architecture; the technical data package with government purpose rights; navigation system performance; and portability of software applications.