The secret to good business is finding new markets and Honeywell is doing just that by retrofitting its commercial avionics technology into military aircraft.
It is putting colour liquid crystal displays, developed for civilian projects such as the Boeing 777, into the cockpits of a range of US and other military aircraft - and there is just no stopping them.
Honeywell's Robert Marrah says: "We're continuing to hire engineers for our Phoenix, Arizona centre just as fast as we can, but we just can't get them quick enough."
It's a good position to be in and Honeywell knows it. In addition to modernisation programmes on US KC-10, KC-135 and C-130 aircraft, the company has also won contracts for display upgrades on USAF F-15, F-16 and F-18 aircraft.
Then there's work on the C-5 Galaxy, the US Navy's E-6 and the USAF's B-52 - the list is endless.
"There's lots of opportunity to take this technology elsewhere in the world too," says Marrah. "We have recently completed upgrades on Belgian C-130s, and both Dutch and British CH-47s.
Upgrade
"It doesn't matter if a small country only wants to upgrade just five or six aircraft either. We have ready-to-fit components on the shelf to handle any size of job."
The military equivalent the of communications navigation surveillance/air traffic management (CNS/ATM) concept, known as global air traffic management (GATM), has yet to be defined, but Honeywell is banking on its Versatile Integrated Avionics (VIA) approach to provide easy upgrades to the new standards with software updates.
The VIA technology builds upon the technology used on the flightdeck avionics of the 777.
The new "glass cockpit' approach to avionics design is having big spin-offs for the retrofit market.
A pilot may not recognise his cockpit after an upgrade, but at least he knows it's bang up to date.
Source: Flight Daily News
