Most have seen the interior of the Airbus A380, but few have ventured into the high-tech cockpit of this flying marvel. Inside, you’ll find eight 15-by-20 cm LCDs, all physically identical and interchangeable; comprising two Primary Flight Displays, two navigation displays, one engine parameter display, one system display and two Multi-Function Displays. Continue reading for more, including a bonus video.
Bonus Video – A380 Landing
The A380 employs an Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) architecture, first used in advanced military aircraft, such as the F-22 Raptor, F-35 Lightning II, and Dassault Rafale. The main IMA systems on the A380 were developed by the Thales Group.
Designed and developed by Airbus, Thales and Diehl Aerospace, the IMA suite was first used on the A380. The suite is a technological innovation, with networked computing modules to support different applications.
The data communication networks use Avionics Full-Duplex Switched Ethernet, an implementation of ARINC 664. The data networks are switched, full-duplex, star-topology and based on 100baseTX fast-Ethernet. This reduces the amount of wiring required and minimises latency.
