L-3 Aviation Products has brought together its four avionics units, branding them under the commercial products banner. “This covers several product lines,” said Larry Ridde, vice president of sales and marketing, business and regional aircraft, for L-3 Aviation Products. Instead of having to deal with separate L-3 personnel from each unit, now a company looking for a variety of L-3 products can deal with a single point of contact, he said, “making it easier for the OEM.” Illustrating the benefits of the common branding, L-3 announced that Bombardier selected the GH-3900 electronic standby instrument system and the FA2100 cockpit voice/flight data recorder for the Global 7000 and 8000 ultra-long-range jets. Cessna has chosen the same combination for its Latitude and Longitude jets.

The four units, all exhibiting here at Booth No. 5080, are Avionics Systems, Aviation Recorders, ACSS and Electronic Systems Services. L-3 invites NBAA attendees to the L-3 booth for a beer and wine reception on Tuesday (October 30) from 4 to 6 p.m. and Wednesday (October 31) from 3 to 5 p.m.

On display at the L-3 booth this year is a new version of the GH-3900 standby instrument, the widescreen GH-3900RSU. The new version consists of a thin display that can be installed in shallow instrument panels and a separate remote sensor unit (RSU) that can be mounted in any convenient space. The 4.2-inch diagonal display is larger than the 3.2-inch diagonal display on the GH-3900, yet it is only 1.5 inches deep, versus about 8.5 inches for the GH-3900. L-3 has secured an unidentified launch customer for the GH-3900RSU.

L-3 is also highlighting the opportunity for operators to upgrade their TCAS products to the latest Change 7.1 software, which is available from service centers for most business jet types. Although there is currently no mandate to upgrade to 7.1 in the U.S., for European operations, the upgrade must be done for retrofit applications by December 2015. ACSS products eligible for the upgrade include TCAS II, TCAS 2000, TCAS 3000, TCAS 3000SP, T2CAS and T3CAS. According to ACSS, Change 7.1 “provides important safety enhancements for operators, including reversal logic, new aural alerting for ‘adjust vertical speed,’ and ‘level-off, level-off’ resolution advisories to make it more clear that a reduction in vertical rate is required.” ACSS has delivered more than 17,000 TCAS units to airlines and business aviation operators.

A big part of L-3’s efforts is equipping aircraft for the upcoming ADS-B OUT mandates, and ACSS is already delivering systems that meet the mandates as well as offer ADS-B IN capabilities such as ACSS’s SafeRoute applications. While some airlines are already trying out SafeRoute apps and the latest ADS-B OUT capabilities using ACSS DO-260B-capable transponders, the FAA is operating a Global Express with a suite of SafeRoute ADS-B IN applications.

ACSS is hosting online webinars to explain Change 7.1 TCAS software and ADS-B developments (more information is available at ACSS.com).