With successful tests under its belt, Collins Aerospace is confident its new Iridium Certus airborne satellite communications (satcom) system for civil aviation will prove “extremely competitive” and see strong adoption when it makes its market debut in 2022.
Operating via the global Iridium NEXT constellation, the higher-bandwidth solution boasts the operational advantage of being able to connect anywhere including the poles.
But Collins Aerospace’s IRT-NX-branded system, which includes the satcom data unit, satcom configuration module and an antenna – either an Active Low Gain Antenna (ALGA) or a High Gain Antenna (HGA) depending on an operator’s bandwidth requirements – boasts other key advantages, says Collins Aerospace VP and GM of business aviation avionics Christophe Blanc.
With Stelia’s Opera outward-facing herringbone looking
set to be a major part of the narrowbody longhaul future, the company is drawing on a wealth of design experience, including from its abandoned mid-2010s Comet widebody herringbone proposal, as it develops the product.
Over the past twenty years, vice president of sales and marketing for cabin interiors Emmanuel Regnier tells Runway Girl Network, “we have seen many herringbone models succeed and fail, many concepts being tested. With this vast knowledge, we are able to draw conclusions from past experiences and design better ones – lighter, with a composite structure instead of an aluminium one, and providing more private passenger experience, with doors on each seat.”
And with the launch of the new interior, as JetBlue accepted delivery of its
first A321LR, it’s fascinating to see industry suppliers keen to highlight their piece of the Airspace puzzle, with Runway Girl Network’s inboxes fairly lighting up with companies excited to share their involvement.
“Diehl Aviation has developed comprehensive packages for the new Airspace cabin for the A320neo Family on behalf of its customer Airbus,” says
Among this work, Diehl has delivered modernised sidewall lining part of the business that
was hived off from Airbus under the “Power8” programme during Tom Enders’ reign as CEO. The airframer
Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd (ST Engineering) in 2019 acquired Belgium’s Newtec, a specialist in designing, developing and manufacturing equipment and technologies for satellite communications. In the ensuing months, the company integrated Newtec’s business with that of ST Engineering iDirect.
The acquisition sees ST Engineering iDirect playing a prominent role in Panasonic Avionics’ third generation network, as its Dialog platform including a (formerly Newtec) modem that uses efficient DVB-S2X and Mx-DMA technologies to achieve 600 Mbps aggregate throughput forms the cornerstone of Panasonic’s worldwide aircraft upgrades.
Panasonic
tells Runway Girl Network that, together with extreme throughput satellite capacity, the modem can ably facilitate a streaming class of inflight connectivity (IFC) service.
Award-winning inflight entertainment peripherals specialist IFPL Group Limited has added a number of important products and proficiencies to its portfolio, after acquiring Cobalt Aerospace Group for an undisclosed sum. Together, they believe they’re well positioned to aid airline industry recovery.
Among the key additions to the IFPL Group portfolio is Cobalt’s new GLS-7 photoluminescent floor path marking for aircraft. All operators are required to have emergency floor path marking in order to fly. And, according to IFPL, the GLS-7 system will revolutionise the market.
“It is the most economical system available by far, and buyers will feel the advantage of being able to spend that extra budget elsewhere,” the company explains to Runway Girl Network. “We’re also looking forward to further developing Cobalt Unplugged wireless chargers, as that fits perfectly with IFPL’s array of in-seat power units.”