NAVAIR Selects Mercury for Head-Up Display in Training Aircraft

Mercury Systems, Inc. received a five-year contract worth as much as $83 million from the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command to deliver high-definition, digital Head-Up Display (HUD) systems for the T-45 Goshawk training aircraft. This firm-fixed-price delivery order was issued under a previously awarded basic ordering agreement. The Navy is the first customer to adopt Mercury’s HUD1080 technology that enables aviators to see critical flight and weapons data in real-time without taking their eyes off the sky.

Under this program, Mercury expects to deliver nearly 300 HUD systems, with the first $45 million production order awarded in conjunction with this contract. The T-45 Goshawk is a tandem-seat jet trainer used to train Navy and Marine Corps aviators to fly the U.S. military’s advanced fighter jets, including the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, F-35 Lightning, and the EA-18G Growler, as well as tactical airborne early warning aircraft such as the E-2 Hawkeye. The new T-45 HUD with an integrated camera is based on Mercury’s low-profile HUD design that minimizes pilot discomfort, enhances situational awareness, and maximizes an aviator’s field-of-view. It is also DAL-A certifiable—the highest level of design assurance that can be applied to airborne systems—allowing it to be used for critical flight and mission tasks such as landing on aircraft carriers.

Current training aircraft use older analog HUD systems that have a bulky design, are out of production, and cannot integrate with the modern enhanced vision systems used in today’s fighter jets. The integration of Mercury’s HUD into the T-45 solves the obsolescence problem for the aircraft and ensures pilots are trained in an operationally realistic environment, as the systems are compatible with upcoming T-45 avionics upgrades.