Esterline CMC Electronics is expecting to make plenty of announcements at the show. President and CEO Jean-Pierre Mortreux says this is partially as a result of the company benefiting from Esterline’s acquisition of CMC in March last year.
“The synergies in the partnership are helping with our long-term strategy and providing additional opportunities for future growth,” he says. Mortreux says concerns over exchange rates and the price of oil are obviously at the front of his mind, but CMC has really found a niche for itself in three key sectors – cockpit integration, electronic flights bags (EFB) and enhanced vision systems (EVS).
“We have been addressing the military cockpit integration market with good results,” says Mortreux. “We were selected three years ago by Raytheon (now Hawker Beechcraft) on the T-6B and more recently by the Turkish Air Force on the Korean KT-1C, and our Cockpit 4000 is on the demonstrator Alenia Aermacchi M-311, which will be flying at the show.
“We were also selected by Patria, Finland, to perform a glass cockpit avionics upgrade of 15 BAE Systems Hawk trainers for the Finnish Air Force and our cockpit is on the Pilatus PC-21 and the Marshall Aerospace upgrade to the Tucano, so this is really a growing market for us.”
EFBs are also featuring highly on the CMC stand and the company will announce today [Monday 14th] that is working with ATR towards EASA certification of its class 2 PilotView EFB as a standard option for new aircraft production and retrofits of in-service ATR-42 and ATR-72 aircraft.
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The dual installation EFB will enable paperless cockpit operations, including aircraft data, procedures, manuals and interactive electronic charts. PilotView was also selected recently by Embraer for the E-170/190 program. There are currently 23 STCs available for the PilotView EFB on aircraft ranging form the Gulfstream GV and Global Express to the Boeing 737. PilotView is also the sole OEM EFB option at Dassault, Gulfstream, Pilatus and Sino Swearingen.
“Two years ago we were producing about 300 EFBs a year. Now we are producing 1,000, so we think this market is really taking off for us. That is why we launched the military TacView version of our EFB last year, which was selected by the special operations arm of the USAF.
EVS is another area, where CMC’s electronics expertise is showing through. Its SureSight EVS family lets pilots see through fog, haze and rain using infrared (IR) and millimetre wave radar (MMWR) sensor systems. The SureSight CMA-2600i integrated sensor system was also selected late last year by Rockwell Collins for use on the Challenger BEVS program for the new wide-body Bombardier Challenger 605 jet.
CMC is also developing a 24 channel WAAS GPS unit, with certification due in September. The company is also developing a Swift broadband version of its 2102 high gain phased array satcom antenna for long range aircraft and there is a lot of interest in its compact SatLite antenna that was launched last year.
“The in-flight broadband market is still progressing, but perhaps not at the rate we had predicted,” says Mortreux. “Clearly, it is the way forward though, which is why we are still developing new models.”
Mortreux also sees a great future in micro electro-optics, especially in the field of intelligent munitions. “There are not a lot of companies doing this and it is one of our key competencies, so expect further announcements in this field,” he concludes.
Source: Flight International
