Thales To Supply Scorpion Helmet Display For Spanish EF-18 Fighter Jets

The Spanish Ministry of Defence will equip the Boeing EF-18 Growler aircraft with 80 Thales Scorpion Helmet Mounted Cueing Systems (HMCS).

These HMCS will be installed in the aircraft during the course of 2016 and 2017, once the operational qualification phase and air-to-air (A2A) and air-to-ground (A2G) tests have been completed.

Scorpion is a ‘force multiplier’ system offering full colour symbology for both nighttime and daytime missions, in addition to target cueing in potentially degraded visual environments, therefore easily allowing target designation and allocation of points of interest with the aircraft’s sensors. Scorpion is fully interchangeable between helmets/pilots as it is installed directly over standard helmets, allowing the total amount of equipment necessary for the fleet to be reduced, thus favouring maintenance and reducing life-cycle costs.

Thales will be responsible for the viability study, testing phase, integration with test aircraft, qualification support and integration in the fleet. Thales will also be responsible for the development and production of the specific Scorpion configuration for the Spanish EF-18 including ejection safety analysis. The qualification phase includes inter-operability with the IRIS-T missile and the daytime/ nighttime-imaging pod for cueing lightening targets.