Ferranti International Plc – and now GEC Plc – is not the only UK company pinning its hopes on the European Fighter Aircraft project going ahead. Ipsys Software Plc, the computer aided software engineering company that was spun-off from Thorn EMI Computer Software in November (CI No 1,315), has won a UKP1m contract with the Fighter programme.Its Hierarchical Object Oriented Design toolset, HOOD, originally specified by the European Space Agency, will be used by members of the consortium to design software for aircraft and sub-systems. The toolset is also being enhanced to support additional features requested by the Aircraft programme. It is building an Integrated Programme Support Environment that will become a standard for all subcontractors. HOOD is being used as an architectural design method to increase the capacity for generating Ada code and reduce recompilation on Ada compilers. The contract with EFA is for a number of toolsets over the next three years, and for training over a five year period. Ipsys has recently signed several European distributors, including the large Italian software house, Etnoteam. Open Systems Liason in Holland, and two distributors in Germany and France have also been appointed by the Macclesfield, Cheshire-based firm.
