War a Proving Ground for Horizons Technology
The stunning victory of U.S. and allied military forces over Iraq in the Operation Desert Storm campaign made heroes of high-technology-based weapons and communications systems, the best known examples being the Tomahawk cruise missile and the Patriot air defense missile system by Raytheon.
But the Gulf War proved a crucible for hundreds of other, lesser-known U.S. companies, including Horizons Technology of San Diego. Their products, taken as cogs in the overall war machine, were just as important as the Tomahawk and Patriot in making the war effort swift and sure.
Horizons Technology is a low-profile software engineering firm that has been designing weapons and communications software for the military since it was founded in 1977. The company, which sells 90% of its products and services to defense-related customers, has shown steady growth and expects revenues to reach $40 million this year. Employees now total 450.
But the war, company managers agree, was a watershed event, and the good performance of its products in the Gulf has given Horizons Technology and other companies like it a renewed sense of purpose.
Pat Boyce, Horizons Technology chief executive, said the success of his company’s products proved that highly sophisticated systems can be made “user-friendly,” in part by designing systems with off-the-shelf computer hardware that can operate in an unfriendly environment by soldiers with little training.
Horizons Technology makes four products that were used in Operation Desert Storm. Perhaps the most technologically advanced is a personal computer-based mapping system that gave Marine pilots flying AV-8B Harrier jets pictures of targets to be hit in Kuwait and Iraq.
Called Map Operator Maintenance Stations, or MOMS, the systems are packaged in portable computers that are taken aboard the jets. The computer terminals produce a map and the aircraft’s location on it, in addition to that of the target.
But the computers are more than weapons aids; they also monitor a jet’s operational data and required maintenance, alerting pilots and air crews to needed repairs, Boyce said.
The basis of the system is a digitized map of Iraq, Kuwait and other Mideast countries that Horizons Technology put together in a “rush job” for the Marines last August after Iraq invaded Kuwait and brought on the U.S.-allied military response.
The Marines delivered a truckload of maps that Horizons Technology then converted into a huge digital data base with the aid of optical scanners. Scanners are devices that “read” printed material and create digitized computer files. With the data, the company “stitched together” a computerized map of the entire region, Boyce said.
The maps were then recorded on optical discs that were inserted into the computers aboard each Harrier jet. By “overlaying” separate data acquired from other sources, including target locations generated from radar and satellite sensors, pilots could pinpoint targets on the maps and fly directly and efficiently to them, he said.
MOMS are a vivid example of the sophistication to which modern weapons and communications systems have risen. Although they may seem an invention from a Flash Gordon comic book, MOMS and systems like them have had a significant practical effect. Apart from making targeting easier, they increased the efficiency of flight planning to the point that Harrier sorties during the war were flown an average of every 30 minutes per aircraft, down from every 18 to 24 hours per aircraft in Vietnam and 36 hours in World War II, Boyce said.
The relentless sorties flown, and the bombing damage that resulted to Iraqi positions are credited with much of the war’s success.
Another Horizons Technology product used in the effort is a hand-held flight management computer operated by pilots and air crews of Army CH-47D Chinook and UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters. The systems are composed of Horizons Technology software in small Hewlett-Packard computers, which allowed the chopper flight crews to accurately calculate weight and balance distribution of the huge aircraft, as well as monitor flight performance.
The systems also reconciled the often conflicting coordinates of the various mapping systems used in the region during the war, eliminating much potential confusion.
Boyce said he believes Horizons Technology’s goal of designing “tools” based on leading-edge technology sets the company apart. Another corporate goal is to take complicated mathematical and computing problems formerly suitable only for mainframe computers and develop software programs that enable unsophisticated users to work them out on small, user-friendly machines.
“Lots of defense contractors will spend years studying a problem and come up with nothing more than a report,” Boyce said. “From day one, we have concentrated on developing and delivering systems that work, and which can be used as soon as practically possible. Desert Storm was real proof that our tools could be used that way and be successful.”
