FMGC in Lufthansa A320s
 

Hi,


Just out of curiosity, what FMGC's do Lufthansa use in their 320s? Thales or Honeywell?

Thanks!!

Have a look at this: https://www.lufthansa-aviation-train...-a320-200-ft66
Real fleet should be the same as training devices...

Btw. FMGC is always the same, only the FM part (boards and hardware) might be from different suppliers.

Hope I could help.

Not necessarily. The company I work for has a mix of Thales and Honeywell but the sims are Honeywell only.

You are mistaken about the FMGCs always being the same

First I made a mistake in my first post. What I meant was: FM part boards (hardware) and SOFTWARE can be different (from different suppliers). Yet it seems to me that there might be a combination of Thales hardware and Honeywell software, but that's just guessing.

Regarding the FMGC: The FG part of the units is to my knowledge always from Thales. So is the housing... The FMGC isn't like a Honeywell FMC. Infact it's like a Honeywell FMC together with a Collins FCC, like on the 757 for example.

So much detail (also debatable), for a simple operational question.

It's in the FCOMs of LH. Either Thales or Honeywell FMS.
+ DSC-22_20-100-20 (Honeywell)
+ DSC-22_20-100-30 (Thales)

Sorry, I don't know the answer.

A product datasheet for FFS on their Aviation Training website says Thales - thus I assume with a high degree of certainty they have Thales.

Given their fleet size, I guess having a single vendor is a risk easily avoided. Not to mention the benefits of know-how transfer to LH Technics when buying from both.

You are guessing incorrectly again.

OK, this is becoming annoying.. I asked an ATA22 Airbus engineer, this is what he told me:

for both SA and LR:
THAV makes the hardware.
AIRBUS makes the FG(E) software
THAV and HWL make the FMS software
THAV integrates everything in the box (even for HWL software) for every serial aircraft.

I don't know what your problem with my post was, but what he wrote to me, is just what I said in the last post.
Sorry for everybody else, still reading, for the confusion...

Many thanks for the answers to all of you!

Are you saying that Honeywell software is run on Thales hardware? If so, why would Honeywell manufacture a card set for this equipment? Is there some part of the Honeywell documentation that I linked earlier that you think is wrong?

The FMG(E)Cs are a little complex. Honeywell made their own FMS board set for these units, with their software running on it. This should be, what's in the pdf you linked. Yet Thales definitely made/make their own FM card set. When it comes to the software which is running on it, it becomes a little tricky. There is Thales FM software out there, but I'm not 100% sure if this software might not be co-developed with another company (Honeywell). But I can't proof that, ask Thales :8.

Apart from that: FM always has to interact with FG, FG is the basic AFCS modes. I don't know, if this is the right thread for deeper technical stuff, but maybe a little:
The FMG(E)Cs are basically 2 (in case of FMGEC - 3) different computers. They share a housing, power supplies and memory to communicate.
FG in FMGC consists of, if I remeber correctly, 3 different CPU boards (2 in COM and 1 in MON) and then there is the FM part (which can be different).
FMGEC is 2 CPU boards for FG (COM - MON), 2 for FE (COM - MON), 1 for FIDS and again FM (which can be different).
All the hardware, FM excluded, is ALWAYS supplied by Thales.
The software for all subsystems is developed by Airbus, FM excluded.
That's why at the end Thales is the one who integrates everything.

Sorry if this was too much info...

Actually you managed to avoid answering the questions I asked. Let's just limit to one question -

Do you have reason to believe that Honeywell Pegasus FMC software ever runs on hardware that was not manufactured and supplied by Honeywell? There are several references in the linked Honeywell document that suggest this is not true. E.g.

"When the Honeywell FMS is selected/installed on a given aircraft, the Honeywell Pegasus FM card set is installed in both FMGC/FMGECs along with Honeywell supplied MCDUs. The standard configuration on the A320 series is two MCDUs and on the A330 there are three MCDUs in the standard shipset."