Avionics News April 2022 - 40

Advertisers Index
UAVIONIX
Continued from page 39
Aero Standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Aircraft Electronics Association . . . IBC, 45
Aircraft Lighting International . . . . . . . . 63
Aircraft Spruce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Avionics News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
AVweb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Cal Labs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
CiES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Dallas Avionics . . . . . . Inside Front Cover
EDMO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Back Cover
Garmin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Mid-Continent Instruments and Avionics . . . 1
Pacific Southwest Instruments . . . . . . . 25
Sandia Aerospace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Schweiss Doors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Tech-Aid Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
TGH Aviation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Tri-Star Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
40 avionics news * april 2022
" We thought, why don't we make a drone transmitter, so aircraft can
see drones. But that was fraught with a lot of regulatory challenges. And
although we did develop a very small, low-power, low-cost transmitter,
there was a big reluctance from the FAA to allow drones to be so
equipped. So we focused on building receivers that would be affordable
and light, small, lightweight, low power but integrated into drones for
detection. And that's really the genesis of uAvionix; miniaturizing that
technology to make it affordable. "
Beard later wondered if they could repurpose their drone technology
for aircraft, although it was never designed for that purpose. " We attended
Oshkosh where we debuted a small experimental ADS-B Out system as
we were walking down the flight line trying to figure out how we would
integrate this technology into a full-scale aircraft and make it affordable. "
They were also thinking that no matter what the cost of the electronics,
the installation is usually a significant portion of that expense. " We were
trying to brainstorm places on the aircraft where we had a view of the
sky and a view of the ground and some power. And that was the epiphany
behind the skyBeacon. If you locate it on the wingtip and replace the
navigation lights, and we're able to integrate a small size, weight, and
power ADS-B transponder into the same place, then you would have
something that was also insanely easy to install, because it was literally
just like replacing the light bulb. "
uAvionix received a very mixed reception to the tiny product at first,
but employees learned from what they heard. " When we first showed
the public what's possible, a lot of the people fell backwards laughing, "
Beard said. " A lot of our competitors told us that we'd never get there,
that we'd never get it certified. One of them sued us for any installation
on a certified aircraft, because the avionics needed to hold TSO
certification. And we're like, well, how hard can that be? It's probably just
a bunch of paperwork, no big deal, right? I had insanely underestimated
what a challenge that was. It turned out to be a massive challenge. There
is no certified GPS that would fit in there (navlight). So we had to develop
these blocks from the ground up under a certified process and then submit
them to the FAA for approval. But none of us really had any experience
on certification. We got an overwhelming sense of encouragement from
fellow pilots to be successful. In a year and a half, we took our core
design, stripped it right back to nothing, put it back together under a
certified process, and submitted a TSO package to the FAA, that they
ultimately granted. "
With units in production for much of the GA world, what's the next
challenge for uAvionix? " Universal equipage, " Beard said. " Right now,
there are some 34,000 GA aircraft that are not ADS-B equipped. If we
could just convince the stragglers to put some kind of beacon on their
airplane, everyone could share the airspace more safely. And what can
we do to enable that? We continue to create because we're almost all
pilots and engineers, and we're passionate about aviation. " q
To learn more about uAvionix, visit uavionix.com.
http://www.uavionix.com
Avionics News April 2022

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