Cockpit Regeneration

WHEN COMMERCIAL JET
goes looking for customers for
its 737-300/-400 cargo conversions
later this year, the
Miami-based maintenance and refurbishment
center plans to offer a differentiator it thinks
will set it apart from the competition: The
best new avionics in cookie-cutter cockpits.

Along with its partner in the effort,
Universal Avionics, Commercial Jet is
planning to retrofit a slew of 737
Classics with large-format liquid crystal
displays, flight management systems,
terrain awareness warning systems and
even Universal's new synthetic vision
product. Once its supplemental type
certificates for the 737 work were completed
for the launch customer's aircraft
in late October, it planned to apply the
same makeover to 757s and 767s.

The company's efforts are indicative
of a trend among owners and operators
of not-so-new airliners to upgrade their
cockpits in the name of commonality,
safety, reliability and operational efficiency.

Commercial Jet GM Iso Nezaj
says the firm canvassed the industry to
find out what buyers of converted cargo
aircraft wanted in the cockpits of their
pre-owned transports. The answers
included flight management upgrades
to permit direct routing and required
navigation performance participation
along with replacement of electromechanical
gauges for longer meantime-
before-failure. Under RNP, an
operator can fly more efficient routings
provided the aircraft is equipped with the
precise navigation equipment that will
allow it to fly within a defined narrow
corridor of airspace (ATW, 1/06, p. 57).

Nezaj says the refurbishment replaces
25 gauges with just 13, not including
engine instruments. Another big plus of
having common cockpits will be in the
training department: "If you're operating
an aircraft built for United and one
built for US Airways, there will be differences
in training," he says. "With
our aircraft, training will be identical."

Commercial Jet is applying for three
STCs for the cockpit refurbishment so
customers can pick and choose different
capabilities, he says. He also has had
"interest" from a couple of 757 and
767 operators for a similar upgrade. He
was not willing to identify the launch
customer for the 737 upgrade.

Dan Reida, worldwide marketing
director for Tucson-based Universal
Avionics, is forecasting a need for about
20 737 cargo conversions per year,
largely owing to the high fuel
burn rate of the 727Fs now
being used. Universal is one of
a handful of competitors for
airline cockpit refurbishments
along with CMC Electronics,
Honeywell and Innovative
Solutions & Support. As evidence
of the trend, FedEx in
late September announced
that it will be spending more
than $2 billion to replace its
727F fleet with 90 refurbished
757-200s. According to a
FedEx spokesperson, the company
has not yet determined
exactly what upgrades it is
contemplating.

Reida says business is
steady for cockpit retrofits and amounts
to "several million" dollars in yearly
sales. Commercial Jet is the largest customer
for the work at the moment, with
equipment for top-of-the-line refurbishments
going at about $500,000 each.
On the horizon could be more work
for Regional airlines. Reida says several
are asking about upgrading their FMSs
and replacing their EFIS displays "to
get sophisticated mapping ability."

While enhanced FMSs will provide the
carriers with more memory for storing
routes and approaches, new displays
with greater processing power will allow
pilots to fly with more situational
awareness and accuracy. He explains
that earlier EFIS displays were limited
to "stick and ball" diagrams for waypoints
and connecting routes on the
screen while the newer systems can
draw curved approaches and holding
patterns, reducing flight technical errors
when crews fly the segments, a key element
of qualifying for RNP approval.

WAAS Up?

Though Universal is not yet
marketing a Wide Area Augmentation
System-enabled FMS, Reida says there is
much interest in the GPS precisionboosting
technology, particularly from
Regionals who want to use WAAS as the
position sensor for RNP capabilities.
While nonaugmented GPS receivers routinely
provide 10-20 m. accuracy, WAAS
typically generates on the order of 3 m.

Another new product to enhance situational
awareness, efficiency and safety
is Universal's Application Server Unit,
equipment that will provide crews with
an integrated Class 3 Electronic Flight
Bag as part of the EFIS. The $35,000
option, on which Universal completed
its flight testing in late September, can
be used to display electronic charts,
checklists, video and broadcast weather
from WSI. Reida says no airlines have
purchased the option as yet. The company
first developed its EFB for the
corporate aircraft market.

Also offering an EFB as part of a
comprehensive cockpit makeover is
Exton, Pa.-based IS&S. Its Cockpit/IP
flat-panel display system includes a
Class 3 EFB with a Jeppesen database
for charts as well as other features in
the works, including satellite weather
through XM or WSI, pilot checklists
and synthetic vision. IS&S has an order
from Jet Partners for 30 firm and 30
option Cockpit/IP systems to upgrade
the flight decks of the operating lessor's
737 Classic fleet. The kit will take 5-7
days to install and includes five active
matrix liquid crystal displays, two control
units and three data concentrators
replacing 65 heritage components for a
weight savings of 150 lb.

E. Michael Cawley, director-business
development for IS&S, says the new
cockpit will make the aircraft "more
attractive" to potential lessees. For the
airline industry in general, he says the
benefits of modernized common cockpits
come in the form of savings in
training costs, parts commonality and a
higher standard of reliability for the
electronics. Cost of the upgrade was
put at "under $400,000, which includes
the engine instrument display, install
kits, labor and certification."

Higher reliability in large part is the
reason Kalitta Air is purchasing IS&S
flat-panel displays to replace the center
panel electromechanical ("steam")
gauges of 17 747 Classics. The
$100,000 retrofit kit, which comprises
two 6-in.-by-8-in. LCDs, a standby
engine instrument, a control display
unit and two engine data concentrator
units, will replace 51 individual electromechanical
gauges on each aircraft.
Cawley says IS&S will ship the first kits
by early November.

The company also is providing new
displays for 767s and will enter the 757
market soon, possibly by year end. He
says there is a potential market for
upgrades of about 700 767s and roughly
2,000 757s. The 767 retrofit kit, which
IS&S produces in partnership with
launch customer ABX Air, incorporates
five displays, includes EFB functionality
and takes only 48 hr. to install. The
upgrade saves about 220 lb. in equipment
weight and the cost varies between
$250,000 and $270,000, Cawley says.

ABX Air, which is certified to do the
installation, has upgraded six 767s--former
passenger aircraft it acquired from
Delta Air Lines--out of an order for 12
shipsets. IS&S also has three unannounced
orders, one of which has been
installed with two pending installation.
Chad Cundiff, VP-crew interface
products for Honeywell Aerospace, says
retrofit business is "starting to pick up"
as airline financial troubles ease.

Popular at the moment are requests to
upgrade Honeywell TAWS packages
with the company's Runway Awareness
and Advisory System, an add-on that
provides aural advisories regarding runway
situational awareness using TAWS
and GPS input. Carriers also are
enhancing their Honeywell FMS equip-
ment to handle RNP and RNAV as
part of the so-called Pegasus upgrade.

Strong Business

With more than 500
commercial airline cockpit upgrades completed
to data, CMC Electronics, headquartered
in Quebec, is in a good position
to assess where the market is heading.
"Upgrades of analog legacy aircraft
continue to be a strong business for us,"
says Bruce Bailey, VP-commercial aviation
for the avionics and GPS manufacturer.

CMC has worked with or continues
to work with customers that include
KLM, Air France, Qantas, Saudi Arabian
Airlines and Kalitta Air. Bailey says the
main ingredients of an upgrade are the
inertial navigation system, FMS, GPS
and EFIS: "That's the core. Some are getting
more; very few are getting less." The
retrofits generally are priced at $200,000-
$450,000 for a 747 Classic, he says.

Civilian airframes on which he
expects refurbishment action in the near
future include A300s as well as 767s
and 757s. Aside from enhancements
driven by mandates like the recently
imposed TAWS and reduced vertical
separation minima rules, owners and
operators are pursuing upgrades so their
crews can fly more efficiently and at the
same time with more situational awareness.

Chief among the new technologies
that help is WAAS, both as a position
sensor for RNP and as an enabler for a
new type of satellite-guided instrument
approach called Localizer Performance
with Vertical guidance. With an LPV
approach, an aircraft can descend to
within 250 ft. or less of the ground
guided by WAAS-enabled GPS signals.
To operate fuel-saving RNP routes
and LPV approaches, cockpits most
likely will need to be retrofitted with
GPS units that have WAAS capability
and FMS units that have more memory.
For CMC, that means more buyers
for the newly certified CMA-9000
FMS and a WAAS-capable GPS receiver
that will be on the market next summer.

The bulk of its 12,000 12-channel
GPS receivers in the field will need new
hardware to enable WAAS operations.
CMC also is seeing more interest in
its Class 2 (removable) EFBs, a product
it first developed for business aviation
cockpits, namely the PilotView EFB, an
option on Gulfstream business jets. "A
number of airlines are looking at it seriously,"
says Bailey, including United
and Continental. "It's something that
will be of interest to them as they try to
integrate IT networks from the ground
into the aircraft." As part of the EFB
offering, carriers can add an EVS to
display an infrared view in front of the
aircraft for situational awareness.

Contrary to IS&S's experience,
CMC has not received much interest in
engine gauge upgrades. Bailey says the
company worked with Teledyne to
develop a solid-state upgrade but the
product "hasn't seemed to have gotten a
lot of traction, at least with the airlines
we're talking to."