Mid Georgia
Software Associates, LLC

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The MC-130E Combat Talon I and MC-130H Combat Talon II provide infiltration, exfiltration and resupply of special operations forces and equipment in hostile or denied territory. Secondary missions include psychological operations and helicopter air refueling.

In 1996-97 the MC-130E Combat Talon I aircraft transitioned from contractor support to Warner Robins Air Logistic Center (WR-ALC) organic support. In order to perform this transition, the Mission Computer (MC) Operational Flight Program (OFP) required rehost to a PC-based JOVIAL toolset removing the requirement for the outdated and no-longer supported VAX based tools. MGSA personnel successfully performed the rehost of the JOVIAL software to the PC toolset. The OFP utilizes several 1750A assembly modules and the assembly code was unique to the outdated VAX based tools. MGSA personnel successfully modified these assembly modules to meet the assembly language syntax of the PC-based tools. All changes were made and successfully integrated/tested.

The MC-130E and AC-130H aircraft utilize similar Mission Computer and Control Display Unit hardware although their missions are uniquely different. Leveraging off of work already performed for the AC-130H capability to provide for OFP execution on a standard PC platform running Gunship, MGSA personnel performed the task of creating an “off-line” tool capability to provide for OFP execution on a standard PC platform running under a Windows operating system.  These tools provide for real-time operation and execution with Mil-Std-1553B communications capability.

Data presentation, display and insert capabilities, and record/save/print functions are identical to that of the AC-130H Gunship capabilities.

The MC-130E Combat Talon I Weapons System Trainer (EWST) residing at Hurlburt Field, Florida was severely outdated from the aircraft. Utilizing the developed PC-based capabilities, the MGSA personnel created a VME based, standard PC Intel architecture single board computer (SBC) system for execution of the MC-130E Mission Computer and Control Display Unit OFPs. The Mil-Std-1553B architecture of the aircraft is replaced with a Scramnet architecture for the trainer environment. MGSA personnel successfully developed the communications interface processing to support the Scramnet interface and the communications between the MCs/CDUs and the simulated environment.

Additionally, the MC data requirements for analog, discrete, and serial data also reside in the Scramnet interface requiring further interface processing to support the data input/output requirements for each of these. MGSA personnel successfully migrated this PC developed capability to the VME based training environment advancing the operational software of the trainer to the current aircraft configuration and providing a method for updates as aircraft software modifications and maintenance are performed.

The MC-130H Combat Talon II aircraft utilize multiple Mil-Std-1750A single CPU Mission Computers (MC) different from that of the MC-130E Combat Talon I. The MGSA personnel developed a non-proprietary software package communicating via IEEE-488 to the MC to allow user development and debug within the actual Mil-Std-1750A LRU. This software executes on a standard PC under a Windows operating system, and has no unique or proprietary licensing requirements.

The MC-130H Combat Talon II memory is limited and as with all platforms, the requirement for additional processing continues to grow. The MGSA personnel successfully reworked the OFP linking process and Mil-Std-1750A page register allocation to free page registers necessary to meet increased processing requirements.