Business & GAAvionics System: Galileo: Commercializing Satnav Politics represents a powerful force in the design world. It manifests itself in everything from emergency locator transmitters (ELTs) to water purity standards to satellite navigation. A vivid example is Europe’s Galileo…
MilitaryBuilding Blocks to Upgrade to B-1B After the collapse of the Soviet Union during the dawn of the1990s, the U.S. Air Force decided to convert its B-1B nuclear bombers to a conventional warfare role. The planes were developed…
MilitaryU.S. Military's Uneven COTS Policy Talk of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) acquisition on a program level, and U.S. military officials often will gladly provide all the details you want. However, talk of COTS on a policy level, and…
CommercialTest Cards for the Airbus 380 As the Airbus 380 program moves forward, a specialist avionics data bus supplier enjoys a lead in producing test cards for the super jumbo’s real-time version of the 10/100-megabit/sec (Mbit/sec) switched Ethernet…
Business & GAWanted: Small Package, Big Performance It’s a matter of wanting it all. Aircraft operators seek antennas that perform multiple functions with improved performance, yet are smaller and less obtrusive on the airframe. Antenna manufacturers appear to be…
MilitaryAV-8B: Open Systems Pioneer Six years ago the Naval Air Systems Command (NavAir) started a program to replace the mission and stores management computers on the AV-8B combat VSTOL (vertical/short takeoff and landing) aircraft with a…
ATM ModernizationEditor's Note: Tomorrow's Navaid Mix What a difference a Volpe National Transportation Systems Center study makes. When this U.S. government organization submitted its study of GPS vulnerabilities to the Department of Transportation (DoT) in early September 2001–followed…
CommercialElectronic Flight Bags –– Part II Like an alignment of the planets, events and activities surrounding the development of electronic flight bags (EFBs) have been coming together to form what would appear to be a large new market…