Posted on March 28, 2018 John Jones
Air France Industries KLM Engineering and Maintenance recently announced its plans to create a Supplemental Type Certificate for its A320 aircraft. Air France is a well-known multi-product maintenance, repair and overhaul provider whose mission is to offer technical support for airlines across the board.
As a part of the European Commission’s H2020 HELIOS project through Air France, the Supplemental Type Certificate will be a retrofit for the GADSS Kannad ELT-DT. The Kannad Elt-DT is a global self-tracking beacon that will allow for detailed aircraft position while in flight.
The beacon will allow air traffic managers to figure out the exact location of aircrafts and will allow for notification of distress in flights without having to ask. This new beacon will ensure no aircraft will ever be lost if aircraft failure occurs, a huge advancement for the aerospace industry.
The HELIOS-led project will improve the retrofitting in-service aircraft process. This upgrade will enable operators to use the system under their current fleet. The requirement for this type of beacon was first adopted in 2016 after several highly publicized downed aircrafts could not be located even after long and extensive search efforts.
This new beacon will be applied to almost every aircraft by January of 2021. The Kannad Beacon will activate automatically should the aircraft deviate off the projected flight pattern. The coverage for the beacon is worldwide so no matter how far the flight veers off path it will still be trackable. Kannad is a global leader in navigation and timing, as a company they strive to improve safety, performance and reliability, making them the perfect fit for the creation of the beacon.
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