New Rockwell Collins business making life easier for flight crews

Business and charter aircraft are becoming “nodes on a network.”

That was the realization that brought Rockwell Collins into its newest business area.

The company known for aerospace communication and navigation gear has launched a full-scale push into transmitting back and forth flight and other data to private jets, something done now for commercial jets, through its new Ascend services. Plans for Ascend were announced last October, and the service will launch later this year.

“The aircraft today are both consuming and generating more information than they ever have,” said Stephen Timm, vice president and general manager of Flight Information Solutions for Rockwell Collins. “It's become an IT (information technology) environment.”

Timm said flight crews consume and supply infinitely more information than non-aviators realize. This includes information on routes, maintenance, weather, flying time of crew members and bill payments. International flights traveling in European air space must even track and report their carbon emissions to civil authorities.

Ascend was developed by the Rockwell Collins Flight Information Solutions business, created in June 2008. The effort gained momentum when Rockwell Collins acquired one of the most experienced providers of route planning services, Air Routing International of Houston, in November 2009.

Rockwell Collins followed up with the acquisition of a major provider of flight scheduling and dispatch services, Computing Technologies for Aviation in Charlottesville, Va., in January 2011. The software platforms of both companies are being merged into the Ascend platform.

Consolidating services

The field of software providers for aviation already is crowded, but Timm said no vendor has yet been able to provide the one-stop-shopping and connectivity Rockwell Collins envisions. Flight crews often must rely on dozens or even hundreds of software utilities and services. Much of the data they required must be input manually, or transferred via disk from onboard computers to ground-based networks.

“We're going to take the market somewhere it couldn't have gone otherwise,” Timm said.

Rockwell Collins is using its avionics expertise to integrate the systems into a single platform that can be displayed via the cockpit avionics it produces, as well as those its rivals produce. The information will be synchronized wirelessly with the aircraft, so that functions can be recorded and information transferred automatically through a secure wireless link called Aircraft Information Manager.

When an aircraft lands at its destination, for instance, the systems automatically will transfer data required for Federal Aviation Administration compliance wirelessly to the aircraft operator's ground-based networks. It also will be able to download information such as payments made during an international flight for accounting purposes.

Better information will mean better decision-making by flight crews, Timm said.

Cost savings expected

The company announced Ascend at a business aircraft association conference last October, telling business aircraft operators it can save them 3 percent to 7 percent per year in operating costs. The savings will come not just from reduced work in recording and processing data, but in improved operating efficiency and regulatory compliance, said Dennis Hildreth, marketing manager for Rockwell Collins Flight Information Solutions.

Ascend is expected to become a major growth area for Rockwell Collins in the years ahead. Teams in Cedar Rapids will work on software and systems for integrating and connecting the data. The venture also will mean growth for the former Air Routing International operations hub in Houston, which already employs 240.

The Houston hub will continue to provide its OnStar-like operator services, which allow flight crews with concerns on long flights to get answers on such questions as fueling availability and weather outlooks.

Clients will be able to order just the Ascend services they need on an a' la carte basis. Timm expects a typical package of services will cost more than $5,000 annually, but the amount will depend on such factors as the number of aircraft and the services desired.

Future applications

Additional acquisitions could be made to accelerate the development of the Ascend services, Timm said. One of the next areas of focus will be on aircraft maintenance.

The use of wireless networks to exchange information with equipment in the field is part of a broader field known as intelligent transportation systems that Rockwell Collins has been involved in for many years. The trend continues to spread into fields like agriculture.

Deere & Co.'s Laurie Zelnio said GPS-enabled agricultural equipment is being incorporated into wireless information networks that will exchange information with things like harvesting combines and tractors.