Story ID: 409
Honeywell Flight Deck Upgrades Lengthen Bizjet Lifetimes
By: Charles Alcock
Caption: The avionics upgrades available for aircraft with Honeywell flight decks also helps preserve the value of older jets.
Word Count: 1274
Honeywell Aerospace is seeing a growing willingness for owners to invest in upgrading cockpits, cabins and engines to prolong the useful service life and bolster the value of their aircraft. Over the past three or four years, this trend has inspired the company to step up efforts to make upgrades available through a mix of service bulletins (SBs) and supplemental type certificates (STCs).

“In some cases, we’ve been addressing a specific mandate [such as ADS-B], but in some situations it’s just an opportunity to take new technology and apply it backwards to existing aircraft to make them last longer and keep values higher,” Honeywell’s commercial aviation vice president Mike Beazley told AIN. The company makes cockpit and cabin electronics as well as engines, and has been increasing the sales resources it dedicates to marketing upgrades to aircraft owners, dealer networks, aircraft brokers and management companies, which are often the gatekeepers to the owners.

“It can be tough for people to decide whether or not to invest in upgrades, but the rule of thumb is that it is certainly worth investing up to around 10 percent of an aircraft’s hull value,” commented Beazley. “Some people are very bullish and believe that if they spend $500,000 an aircraft will sell more quickly. In some cases OEMs are taking back aircraft in trade [for new models], and we now see them being more willing to invest in upgrades.”

Among the STCs now in demand are those covering Honeywell’s Primus Elite Advanced Features avionics package for the Gulfstream PlaneDeck cockpit on the GIV-SP and GV. This will be available for the GIV model by around the end of this year and during 2017 for the Bombardier Global Express/Global XRS/Global 5000, as well as for the Cessna Citation X, the Dornier Do-328, the Embraer Legacy 600/650 and the Dassault Falcon 900C/900EX. The new features include the following elements: integrated primary flight display with synthetic vision system, SiriusXM weather, traffic collision avoidance system and on-wing field loading of application software and databases.

In the rapidly developing realm of inflight connectivity, there are currently some 30 STCs in progress covering the installation of Honeywell’s JetWave hardware to enable the JetConnex high-speed Ka-band satcom. According to the manufacturer, JetWave has been specifically designed to be easily retrofitable to existing aircraft.

For older cockpits, Honeywell (Booth 2200) is now offering wider access to its high resolution CD-830 touchscreen display that eliminates parallax errors and improves performance in turbulence. STCs for the new LCD displays will soon be available for the Falcon 900A/B/C/EX models through West Star Aviation (Booth 2257). Honeywell already offers upgrades to LCD display technology, which is lighter than the traditional CRT displays and has greater potential to be upgraded, for about 10 other platforms. At its NBAA show exhibit, Honeywell will demonstrate the difference between older CRT displays and the latest screens.

Operators of the various versions of Honeywell’s FMZ-2000 flight management system have the option of upgrading to the latest FMS 6.1 software. The manufacturer has a goal of consolidating support for this version of the product for all platforms by the end of 2018. Today, it is available for the following aircraft: Bombardier Global Express, Global XRS, Global 5000 and Challenger 600/601; Cessna Citation II, III, V, VII and X; Falcon 50, 20, 200, 900B, 900C and 900EX; Embraer Legacy 600 and 650; Gulfstream II, III, IV, IVSP and V; and Hawker 800, 800XP and 1000.

Beazley explained that FMS software upgrades are giving Honeywell customers a quick and cost-effective path to securing improved functionality and readiness for requirements such as ADS-B and CPDLC. “It allows operators to have access to a far broader array of applications, and with more additional features,” he said.

Honeywell’s enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS) now includes software upgrades for the SmartRunway and SmartLanding features that improve the situational awareness of pilots during taxi, takeoff and landing, as well as helping with stabilized approaches and mitigating the risk of runway incursions and excursions. The company is now offering upgrades for the MK V, MK V-A, and MK VII versions of the EGPWS, as well as for the Epic EGPWS module.

Another recent upgrade offering for the Primus Epic avionics suite is the SmartView synthetic vision system, which further enhances situational awareness by providing a large, 3-D color synthetic image of real-world conditions outside the cockpit. Upgrades for the system, which is already standard on the latest Gulfstream, the G650, are available for the G450/550, as well as for the Falcon 2000/900DX, LX and EX and 7X. An upgrade for the GV will be ready shortly, and several other programs are in the pipeline.

In a bid to improve the value of extended warranty coverage for its avionics systems, Honeywell is adding to the list of parts covered by its typical three-year fixed-rate support contracts. “As parts [in legacy systems] get older and can’t be repaired, we’ll use the contract as a vehicle for operators to install newer replacements and spread the cost of the upgrade installations through their maintenance payments,” explained Beazley. “We’re now offering support for multiple systems [including engines, cabin systems and avionics] to all be covered under a single support program.”

Meanwhile the latest 36-150 auxiliary power unit (APU), which promises improved performance for main engine starts and increased on-wing reliability, is now available for retrofit on the GIV/IVSP and for the Challenger 601/604. According to Honeywell, the new APU is also quieter than earlier versions and also provides more cool air for the cabin on the ramp.

Connectivity Grows

According to Beazley, cabin and cockpit connectivity solutions will prove to be the largest area of future growth for Honeywell, and it was this ambition that inspired the group to acquire specialist providers EMS Technologies three years ago and Satcom1 last year. “Now we make connectivity hardware across the entire spectrum and for aircraft up to the size of the A380,” he told AIN. “We make the entire suite of systems from terminals to antenna, and can sell air-time packages too, for a complete solution.”

To support Inmarsat’s JetConnex high-speed broadband offering, Honeywell’s JetWave hardware is now available for STC installation on some 30 separate aircraft models. “This represents a true step change in connectivity rates, from 237 kilobytes per second to more than 10 mebabytes per second,” stated Beazley.

The vastly improved connectivity rates now available are set to deliver significant advantages to flight crew. For instance, there is now the potential for radar data to be ‘crowd-sourced’ and shared between aircraft, and the same could be true for engine or aircraft trend data. For business aircraft limited by factors such as radome size, this approach can allow operators to enjoy the benefits of onboard weather radar without having to install new hardware.

Bombardier recently selected the equipment as an option for its entire Global family, and Beazley predicted that other airframers are set to follow suit. Honeywell is demonstrating JetWave at the show this week, as well as holding seminars aimed at clearing up confusion among customers about how the various connectivity elements fit together.

The fast-expanding portfolio of Honeywell upgrades and modifications are available through a mix of SBs and STCs from the manufacturer’s own service centers and also through a network of around 400 dealers globally. “We let the dealer network bid on who wants to do the work, but they are generally required to resell the STCs to other providers,” concluded Beazley.