This is the first NBAA show that CMC Electronics (Booth 2967) has attended since its acquisition by Esterline 18 months ago.
Bruce Bailey, Esterline CMC’s vice-president, commercial aviation, says visitors should not miss the double-decker booth, which also features products from three other companies in the Esterline group. Bailey says: “Business aviation continues to grow for us – in 2005 it represented about 10% of our commercial aviation turnover, but by next year we expect that to have grown to around 40%.
CMC is keen to show visitors its SureSight enhanced vision system (EVS) products, which help increase flight crew situational awareness by helping pilots see through fog, haze, precipitation and at night. The EVS provides an image on the Head Up Display (HUD), a Head Down Display (HDD) or both to enable the pilot to see the terrain/airport environment in low visibility situations.
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Bailey says that EVS is a good business sector for CMC and fits strongly with the rest of the company’s avionics product line. “Key to that is the EVS sensor core itself,” says Bailey. “We have a great relationship with L-3 where we have exclusive rights to its infra-red product lines. Our EVS business to date had been based upon the modest 256 x 256 pixel resolution Infra Red (IR) sensor, but we recently launched a 640x512 pixel hi-res version with the CMA-2700, with Bombardier being the launch customer for its next-generation Global Express.
“The US Department of State and Department of Commerce are allowing the release of more advanced sensor cores originally developed for military applications, like the Joint Strike Fighter. I can see that within a few years we could have 2,000x2,000 pixel IR sensors and that’s the advantage we have of being associated with companies like L-3 Cincinnati.
“There is very strong demand for EVS at the high end of the business jet market and we are shipping a very high number of units on aircraft including Dassault’s 2000, 7X and 900, Bombardier’s Global Express and 5000. We were also selected on the new Challenger 605. And next year we will be certifying on the Boeing BBJ too,” says Bailey.
Source: Flight Daily News
