NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND, PATUXENT RIVER, Md.  — The Air Combat Electronics Program Office (PMA-209) hosted its annual Industry Day on July 21 to help companies learn more about Naval Aviation inventory and capability growth, speed to the fleet and the Navy’s alignment efforts with industry.

More than 100 attendees, representing 65 industry counterparts including Naval Air Systems Command program platforms and competencies as well as the U.S. Army’s Aviation & Missile Research Development & Engineering Center, participated in the all-day event.

In her opening remarks, Candace “Candy” Chesser, program manager for PMA-209, stressed the importance of bringing companies together to share new and innovative Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) and Hardware Open Systems Technology (HOST) initiatives that benefit the future of Navy weapons programs.

“Industry Day is a great opportunity to bring together industry and government to discuss common solutions for multiple platforms and how we can implement open architecture initiatives across the Command,” she said.

This year’s theme, “Core Avionics Capability FACE Apps," captured the state of the art industry offerings as well as PMA-209’s guidance on its Open Architecture (OA) pursuits.  During the morning session, PMA-209 representatives gave presentations on Navigation and Airspace Integration, while PMA-299 staff briefed on its H-60 Software Improvement Program.

In the afternoon, several industry teams presented products that align to the FACE standard and covered briefs on Affordable Cyber Hardening, Units of Portability (UoPs) for Future Vertical Lift and Sense and Avoid demos, as well as Required Navigation Performance / Area Navigation, Flight Management System and Flight Scene maps. Other topics discussed included Automatic Route Re-planner, Helicopter Terrain Awareness Warning System and Integrated Aircraft Survivability Equipment data off-boarding.

As NAVAIR’s executive agent for the development and management of Air Combat Electronics systems, PMA-209 is responsible for providing critical capabilities to the Warfighter in the form of common, fully developed, supportable and reliable systems that align with the strategic and operational requirements of PEO/PMA customers.