Steve Nichols/DUBAI
Honeywell (E712) is continuing its highly successful retrofit business with a new contract for navigation systems on Malaysia Airlines' Boeing 747-200 aircraft.
The Honeywell Classic Navigator combines a ring laser gyro with a GPS navigation system and is designed to be a cost-effective solution to the performance and reliability problems of current-generation ARINC 561 Inertial Navigation systems.
Available for "classic" aircraft including the 747-100/200/300, the McDonnell Douglas DC-10, the Airbus A300-B4 and the Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, Classic Navigator is designed to be form, fit and function compatible with existing older systems.
It combines the Honeywell/ Trimble HT-9100 Navigation Management System with an all-digital "super AHRS" (Attitude Heading Reference System).
"Current-generation classic aircraft employ older 'spinning mass' inertial technology and suffer from low reliability and high maintenance costs," says Qua Le, Honeywell airline marketing manager for Asia Pacific. "Those are two excellent reasons for going to the ring laser gyro technology."
To emphasise this, Honeywell predicts a weight saving of 100lb (45kg) per aircraft and a 10-fold system reliability improvement.
"Customer interest has been very high and we expect to announce additional orders by the end of the year," Qua Le continues. "We're getting a broad range of enquiries from airlines that have only a few aircraft to large fleet operators."
Source: Flight Daily News
