Thales Satcom System Earns Boeing Certification

By Tish Drake | November 24, 2010
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The Thales TopFlight satellite communications system has been certified on Boeing 737 NG and 777s, the companies announced Tuesday.

Thales said its TopFlight system is the first ARINC 781 SwiftBroadband-enabled SATCOM capable of simultaneous flightdeck and cabin communications certified for production installation on the Next-Generation 737 and 777. TopFlight provides a dedicated channel for Inmarsat Classic flightdeck voice and data and another channel of SwiftBroadband for non-critical flightdeck voice, Boeing Electronic Flight Bag and cabin applications.

“Being first to market for this new technology on both the 777 and next-generation 737 is really important to us. Over 20 airlines have already selected Topflight Satcom and now that we have passed these
milestones with Boeing we will be able to bring its benefits to even more operators,” said Peter Hitchcock, head of Thales U.K.’s avionics business. “People are amazed to see the level of technology that we have included in such a compact system. Not only does this have huge benefits in terms of weight/drag reduction, but the ability to bring SwiftBroadband into the Cockpit as well as the Cabin allows operators to access dramatically lower data transmission costs and faster speeds. We expect this to drive demand in the same way that connected IFE and Wi-Fi/GSM systems are doing in the cabin.”

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