May 14, 2025 – Ultra PCS and Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions Division today announced that they have been selected by ACE Aeronautics (Guntersville, Alabama), to provide a lightweight, high technology Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and Flight Data Recorder (FDR) with integrated Health and Usage Monitoring System (HUMS) solution for installation on the UH-60L Black Hawk helicopter fleets of foreign militaries. Under the contract, Ultra PCS and Curtiss-Wright will provide ACE Aeronautics with the ED-112A collaboratively developed Fortress HUMS CVR/FDR with integrated HUMS capability designed for use on rotorcraft platforms. The initial contract is for 13 Aircraft and includes the prototype aircraft at ACE Aeronautics. Shipments are scheduled to begin later this year and run through 2028.
Photo: Curtiss-Wright
This contract represents the first selection of a lightweight modern combined crash recorder with voice, flight data, and integrated HUMS developed for U.S. built rotorcraft. Compared to segregated crash recorder and HUMS alternatives, and to competitive offerings, the 13lb Fortress HUMS delivers advanced technology, including the latest 25-hour CVR capability, with substantially lower weight (~50lbs less) and greater ease of installation. Fortress HUMS, which can monitor all rotorcraft mechanical systems, blends accident, incident, and flight data analysis with advanced rotorcraft mechanical diagnostics, resulting in increased safety and aircraft operational availability while lowering maintenance costs. The use of HUMS as a standalone solution has been shown to increase rotorcraft availability by 15-20% by successfully predicting maintenance-related issues so that maintenance can be conducted based on real-time condition data, rather than schedule.
Ultra PCS is delighted to bring this next generation, game-changing technology to market, said Ben Sutton, Vice President, Data Processing, Ultra PCS. The Fortress HUMS will provide the end-user with a significant fleet management capability that enables them to reduce operational costs by making better decisions about maintenance analysis, safety, training, and interface to the supply system. This system will provide the transformational ability to the customer from crew chief to design engineer.
The selection of the Fortress HUMS recorder by ACE Aeronautics to support the Black Hawk helicopter fleets of foreign militaries is an important milestone in bringing advanced voice/data recording and HUMS monitoring and diagnostics to rotorcraft platforms, said Brian Perry, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions Division. With its unmatched size and weight reduction, Fortress HUMS significantly reduces the time and cost of aircraft installation and through-life operational costs. For the 3,300 UH-60L Black Hawks and 1,730 CH-47 platforms in service around the world, Fortress HUMS delivers a compelling approach for optimizing defense mission readiness and weight savings. What’s more, Fortress HUMS offers equal, if not even greater potential value, to commercial rotorcraft fleet operators.
About Fortress HUMS
Fortress HUMS is a non-invasive, fault-tolerant, and compact solution that combines Curtiss-Wright’s next-generation Fortress crash recorder with the revolutionary integrated HUMS developed by Ultra PCS. The resultant product will offer full CVR/FDR recorder capability coupled with a state-of-the-art HUMS that will offer users a powerful yet lightweight and affordable prognostic and diagnostic health monitoring system. Advanced HUMS algorithms calculate the remaining useful life of components, enabling significant maintenance cost savings and increasing aircraft availability by reducing or extending maintenance beyond conservative periodic routines.
The Fortress HUMS solution has a scalable and composable architecture that can accommodate up to 60 smart sensor channels (e.g. accelerometers, tachometers, communications interfaces, and auxiliary data acquisition modules). The distributed sensor network acquires all data parameters required for both HUMS and FDR functions. This includes vibration data for mechanical diagnostics, engine monitoring, and airframe monitoring; platform dynamics for rotor track and balance; analog and digital signals for usage monitoring, exceedance monitoring, and regime recognition; and ARINC 429, analog, and digital signals for flight data recording. Fortress HUMS can operate with a cockpit area microphone, HD color camera, Recorder Independent Power Supply, and ground replay software to provide a complete cockpit voice, video and flight data recording capability. Fortress HUMS is easy to reconfigure, allowing sensors to be repurposed, added or removed, and reprogrammed without the need to remove hardware from the aircraft.
Curtiss-Wright manufactures the Fortress HUMS data recorder system at its facility located in Christchurch, UK.
Press release