Authored by Helen Haxell in Shepard Media

Curtiss-Wright is developing a manual aircraft securing and traversing (MAST) handling system, which is expected to be utilized by the more littoral-based navies around the world.

The technology helps to land a rotorcraft safely onto a flight deck during maneuvering and traversing operations.

The single-operator system talks to the aircraft through a main landing gear interface this reduces the need for a probe to be integrated into the airframe.

Helicopter securing can be 'achieved via operator manual control of the deck securing device compatible with a Lynx, EH101, NH90 or Dauphin helicopter', or other helicopters with main landing gear that can be gagged.

Don McKay, Director of Sales and Marketing - Indal Technologies, Curtiss-Wright, explained to Shephard that this type of system would be aimed at developing countries with tighter budgets that are perhaps more littoral-based navies.

‘We still give them [the navy] high-level capability maybe at a slightly lower price point than the full-on systems. It doesn’t have that much automation, and is more manual.

‘What the system provides is the technology to allow the helicopter to land safely at higher sea states on smaller ships.’ McKay said. One of the company’s newest offerings, the system is currently at the prototype phase.

‘This is our newest system. We are still basically at the prototype stage. It is not operational yet...we should have a working system by the end of this year or into 2018.

‘We are looking into finding a launch customer and then go into the production stages,’ he commented. The company is looking towards Finland and Poland at the moment and South America specifically - Brazil could be another opportunity for MAST.

Read the full article here