Honeywell Aerospace is finishing up its supplemental type certificate (STC) for installation of its Aspire 200 Inmarsat Swiftbroadband-based satcom system on the Airbus AS350 as it highlights the important role the concept of a connected aircraft can play in applications such as medevac and police use.
Honeywell has submitted the paperwork for the second STC and was hoping to have it in hand by Heli-Expo, if not shortly afterward, said Tom Neumann, who recently became v-p, operations for Honeywell’s BendixKing unit after serving as a director in the commercial helicopters business.
The approval comes a little more than a year after Honeywell secured the initial approval on the Leonardo AW139 and as work continues on a number of other platforms. Honeywell is working with Safran Engineering Services to secure approvals from both the FAA and EASA on a range of both commercial and military platforms. In the interim, Honeywell is planning a series of demonstrations of capabilities in the AS350 for uses such as emergency medical operations.
Aspire 200 is a high-speed wireless broadband system that can provide data rate speeds approaching 600 kbps, depending on the package adopted. Neumann noted this is a “step change function” in broadband capabilities “versus traditional Iridium systems.”
The increase became possible as Honeywell worked through the issue of helicopter configuration. The rotor blade has acted as a shield that prevented the signal from reaching the satellite, he said. To get around that, the solution was to have “an extremely long tail boom with an antenna that really didn’t work optimally,” he said. “We’ve solved that problem now by allowing the system to basically push the signal through the rotor blade.”
Aspire 200 synchronizes the signal with the rotor blades to take advantage of the gaps, Neumann said. “It’s not unlike the problem of World War I, when they were trying to get machine guns to fire through the propeller of a fighter.”
The new speed capabilities open a range of possibilities that Neumann said were not possible before. One focus is packaging services for telemedicine uses for emergency medical services operations. “We’re working on the capability to get [medical] information such as a patient’s vital signs and even ultrasound to the hospital,” he said. “When a patient arrives at the hospital, the potential for survivability goes up exponentially because they’ve got that information and are not wasting time doing diagnosis that can now be done on the helicopter.”
The telemedicine capability is one of several possibilities that Honeywell is eyeing. He noted customers have been looking for “tele-engineering” solutions, under which they can transmit engineering diagnoses in remote locations to a base location. Search and rescue and law enforcement are other potential applications, he said, noting police can broadcast images from surveillance back to the station. “We’re doing some work with some folks in California to get that launched as well,” he said. “It’s a new frontier in a lot of ways where people are beginning to realize the value.”
With STC approval in hand, Neumann added, “we’re at the point it’s no longer a concept. It can actually be done and we can now demonstrate this.”
With the market undergoing a downturn, he noted, “the helicopter industry is at the point where owners are searching for other ways to utilize the ability of the helicopter and ways to go commercial. The connected aircraft is a path to open the market to different industries in ways that weren’t open or possible.”
Honeywell is not just focused on the “pipe, but also to provide solutions to various users and provide services that are valuable to them,” he said.
Honeywell is still working out pricing on installation. The price will vary according to hardware, such as the antenna, and also whether it is coupled with data packages, he said, adding “we’re very, very aware” of the margins of the industry.
Honeywell plans to highlight the technology at this year’s Heli-Expo (Booth 5423), alongside its Sky Connect Tracker III satellite communications and helicopter tracking system. Honeywell late last year announced an agreement with EMS provider Air Methods to collaborate on bringing the latest Sky Connect Tracker system to market.
Honeywell is upgrading Air Methods’s existing Sky Connect Tracker II system to the III, which enables phone and text services and provides helicopter fleet tracking globally for fleet managers. In addition, the Tracker III provides flight data monitoring functionality in compliance with the FAA’s mandate for EMS operators.