Avionics News August 2014 - 21

Through INDS (integrated navigation data
BendixKing
service), a Wi-Fi-connected iPad can be used to
AeroWave 100
update databases for charts and plates, for the
terrain-avoidance system and all the navigation
database updates - sitting on the air stair, in the
back cabin or at a table in a hangar sipping a
warm beverage. It's all done via Wi-Fi.
At Rockwell Collins, the new-aircraft owners
of ProLine Fusion flight decks - Gulfstreams,
Globals, Learjets and others - enjoy a dramatically powerful, operationally flexible and interface-friendly system - one that can download
and install wireless updates of all flight-related
databases and maintenance information, globally
when networked with Rockwell Collins Ascend Flight
Wireless headphone:
Information Solutions. Happiness is never handling a data
new options, but better performance?
card or thumb drive to know the panel's brains received
Remember 900 megahertz cordless home phone systems?
the latest memory update.
If you're not that old, you may be old enough to remember
The general aviation industry
2.4 gigahertz ... and Bluetooth. These
seems interested in establishing some
technologies remain in-use today in
standards. At a recent RTCA (Radio
consumer products, for home-enterTechnical Commission for Aeronautainment systems, wireless speakers
...the wireless-cockpit
tics) symposium, members caught
and more, including aviation headsets
idea opened a new
up with work currently underway by
connected wirelessly to the aircraft
the ARINC Software Data Loader
intercom.
front on intra-aircraft
Subcommittee toward creating and
From initially interfacing with mocommunications,
upgrading today's current standards
bile phones and entertainment players,
for high-speed software data loadwireless technologies in audio-control
in-flight
ing and high-density storage media
panels now support the most-common
entertainment and
for the interfaces between software
piece of cockpit audio gear: the headdata loaders and the target hardware.
set. Multiple interface options exist,
aircraft-systems
Since this issue landed a place at the
some that allow adapting an existing
table three decades ago, the medium
management welcomed
headset, others with the capability built
for database and other software upinto the headset.
by growing numbers
dates evolved more rapidly than anyNow about those old 2.4 GHz
one expected.
of pilots.
phones of years back ... this technolIn the past, the media for the softogy offers one option to cut your cords
ware changes had to be physically
employing the technology. One comdelivered to be loaded into the hardpany, EQ1 Wireless Communications,
ware - initially via floppy disks, then compact discs and
pitches 2.4 GHz as a more reliable and stable alternative to
then on to miniaturized memory cards. The group hopes
Bluetooth.
to establish some ground-level standards for storage and
EQ1 Wireless Communications offers multiple 2.4 MHzcompatibility in an industry where regulatory inertia lags
based options for its products - ones with the wireless hardinnovation by years. Today's so-called thumb drives boast
ware integral to the headset, another that lets owners adapt an
capacities into the hundreds of gigabytes.
existing headset for wireless use. Both options connect to the
But even loaders for those miniaturized storage cards
audio panel through a channel-hopping 2.4 MHz adapter that
become moot in the face of a wireless option operable resimply plugs into the aircraft panel jacks to the audio panel.
motely via a tablet or smartphone. Some look at local-area
The factory pairs the headsets and/or adapters before shipWi-Fi, others via Internet-based cloud storage of data and
Bluetooth of 4G communications links.
Continued on following page
avionics news

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2014

Avionics News August 2014

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