Modular, reusable flight software for production strike aircraft

In 1995, an initiative was launched at McDonnell Douglas Aerospace to assess the potential for reuse of flight software across multiple fighter aircraft platforms, and to define and demonstrate a supporting system architecture based upon open commercial hardware, software, standards and practices. The project has, thus far, yielded a preliminary common software architecture for mission processing, and successful demonstration flights of a reusable navigation module on three MDA aircraft (AV-8B, F-15 and F/A-18). The key products and findings, to date, of this ongoing activity are summarized.