Flight data monitoring provider Latitude Technologies (Booth No. 411) and AKV (Booth No. 1624), maker of engine cycle counters for helicopters, announced a jointly developed technical interface between the companies’ products. The new interface is designed to provide fleet operators with valuable engine condition and performance data.

AKV president Jonathan Gunn said the companies worked together to pair the AKV ETM1000 exceedance and trend monitor to Latitude’s IONode ION100 lightweight flight data recorder, allowing engine condition data to be recorded and transmitted for analysis and maintenance planning. “In combining [the two systems], engine trend data along with recorded events can now be seamlessly synchronized and displayed with Latitude’s post-flight analytical software to provide a full and accurate picture of a helicopter’s operation,” he said.

Latitude president Mark Insley added that the technical and business development partnership provides his company with a marketing advantage over competing flight data management solutions. Latitude does this by offering a method to continuously monitor engine parameters and deliver that data to fleet maintainers and operations teams. “It’s all about automation and timeliness,” he noted. “Our customers were telling us that they wanted to monitor more than flight behavior data and that engine condition data is vital to aircraft maintenance and flight safety.”