Aviation Communication & Surveillance Systems (ACSS) is lucky to be at Le Bourget. Joint parent L-3 Communications pulled out of the show just a few weeks ago, leaving ACSS in a dilemma. Thales, its other joint owner, was unable to offer the company space.
"We had just signed major contracts with Airbus and Dassault," said ACSS President Joe Hoffman, "We had to be here." Luckily, ACSS has found a home in the American Pavilion in Hall 3, A12-B where it is demonstrating its range of products including Traffic Collision Alert Avoidance System (T2CAS).
Airbus recently agreed to offer T2CAS as a supplier furnished equipment (SFE) option on all new Airbus long-range, single-aisle and wide-body aircraft. The product will be type certified before the end of 2004. However, "full wiring provisions" for new aircraft and a "T2CAS system provision" service bulletin for retrofit aircraft will be available in early 2004.
Customers"The Airbus contract was a phenomenal award for us," says Hoffman, "And adds to the other airlines already won over by T2CAS, namely Northwest, Virgin Express, Aeromexico, FedEx Express, Mesaba, Aero California and the US Customs Service. ACSS is expected to announce two further customers for T2CAS at the show.
It has also gained success with its Military Airborne Surveillance System (MASS), which uses ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast) technology. "We've been able to leverage that system to offer rendezvous and formation station keeping capabilities as a complementary technology to TCAS and solve some of the limitations of our competitor products," says Hoffman.
"We have won the Boeing 767 Global Tanker Transport programme, which gave us a lot of credibility and opened up some new opportunities for us. It proved that using ADS-B as a complementary technology to TCAS is the way to go forward."
ACSS has also launched its next-generation TCAS platform, which is a common-computing platform offering great flexibility and "mix and match" functionality. Launch customer is Dassault for its Falcon 7X.
Source: Flight Daily News
