Rockwell Collins has won separate contracts from China’s Xiamen Airlines and China Southern Airlines involving several of its avionics systems, including its Multi-Scan Threat Detection Radar and GLU-925 Multi-Mode Receiver (MMR).
The MMR fills the need for airlines that are adopting required navigation performance (RNP) as well as area navigation (RNAV) and automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) capabilities. The GLU-925 meets GPS position requirements for ADS-B OUT, RNP/RNAV to RNP authorization required 0.1, navigation position source and Category III ILS and Category I GPS landing system.
The Xiamen deal, which also includes a provision for Rockwell Collins’s Head-up Guidance System (HGS) and Satcom satellite communications systems, covers 12 new Boeing 737s scheduled for delivery next year.
An advantage of flying with a head-up display (HUD) is that at certain airports in China pilots may fly instrument approaches down to lower minima, even if the airport is equipped only with a Cat I instrument landing system (ILS). The standard Cat I criteria in China are 550 meters runway visual range (RVR) and 60 meters decision height (DH). With HUD, airlines and business jet operators can use minima of 450 meters RVR and 45 meters DH, according to the CAAC special authorization Cat I HUD minima.
In China the CAAC has approved seven airports for the lower Cat I minima. These include Beijing, Shanghai Pudong, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Xi’an, Qingdao and Jinan. Another 58 airports are to be approved during the next two years, according to Rockwell Collins. This is all part of the China HUD Application Roadmap, which encourages airlines to install HUD systems. The roadmap outlines three stages for HUD implementation: short-term (2013-2015), with HUD installed in 10 percent of new and in-service aircraft that can be fitted with HUD systems; mid-term (2016-2020), HUD and enhanced vision systems (EVS) on 50 percent of applicable aircraft; and long-term (2021-2025), HUD/EVS on all aircraft. The goals for each term also include increasing the number of airports with special Cat I standards and Cat II approach/takeoff minimum standards, publishing HUD/EVS minimum standards and increasing the number of qualified aircraft operators.
The still larger China Southern deal covers 66 aircraft, including Airbus A320s, Boeing 777s and Boeing 737s. Plans call for deliveries to start this year.
Other avionics systems chosen by China Southern include Rockwell Collins’s TCAS II, Satcom, ADF-900, DME-900, HFS-900D high-speed data radio, LRA-900 low-range radio altimeter and VOR-900 nav radio.
The MultiScan Threat Detection radar automatically scans thunderstorm cells and displays threats such as hail and lightning potential, thunderstorm bow-wave turbulence and tracking of storm cells. o
