Story ID: 
EMS Satcom gets Honeywell bid
By: James Wynbrandt
Caption: At a press conference here at the NBAA Convention yesterday, EMS Satcom announced Honeywell (Booth No.
Word Count: 464
At a press conference here at the NBAA Convention yesterday, EMS Satcom announced Honeywell (Booth No. 1994) has selected the company’s eNfusion SwiftBroadband satcom technology for its MCS-7100 series multichannel family of satcom products. The products will provide in-flight access to high-speed Internet access, voice and video in most of the world’s skies.

“The demand for in-flight high-speed Internet access has been building in recent years, and our relationship with Honeywell has matured in step,” said Neil Mackay, EMS Satcom’s senior vice president and general manager. “This agreement, which we expect to be worth at least $35 million to EMS Satcom over the next five years, gives our aeronautical satcom technology another avenue to penetrate the business and commercial airline markets.”

Ottawa-based EMS Satcom will supply SwiftBroadband hardware and software as well as a range of Inmarsat satcom antennas and CNX cabin gateways for the MCS-7100 series. According to Menard, the systems will initially be installed in Gulfstream, Embraer and Dassault corporate aircraft. 

EMS Satcom also announced that its eNfusion HSD-128 high-speed data terminal has been integrated with an electronic flight bag (EFB) in a Global Express. The high-speed link allows the EFB to provide graphical weather data via Arinc and Universal Weather, which is especially useful on flights outside of North America, where terrestrial systems may be unavailable or unreliable.

The integrated system was installed by Montreal-based ABC Completions (Booth No. 1964), which designs the installation, gets the supplemental type certificate (STC) approval for the modification, and creates installation kits for the mod. Nash said the installations require about a week, and can be done at the customer’s site by an ABC mobile installation team. 

“[Broadband access] increases the safety of flight for long-range operators,” said Gary Nash, president of ABC Completions. “The graphic image of a cyclone over the Sea of Japan that takes two minutes to download is worth a lot.”

In additional news, EMS Satcom announced the successful completion of testing of its eNfusion AMT-3500 fuselage-mount intermediate-gain antenna with Inmarsat. This is the first antenna of its kind to receive Inmarsat type approval. At a weight of just over 13 pounds and with a low-drag profile, the antenna was designed with small general aviation aircraft in mind, as well as an alternative to the company’s larger, heavier AMT-3800 high-gain antenna.

“Our strategy to develop new markets, such as air transport, and to enable broadband on smaller aircraft, drove us to design and build this antenna,” said Mackay. “With performance very near that of our AMT-3800 high-gain antenna, we are making it easier to have in-flight broadband on smaller aircraft.”