Should cockpit trump cabin?
Connectivity capacity is focused on the cabin over the cockpit but should passenger enjoyment come before pilot performance? Yves Le Marquand reports
Drilling holes for broadband
Exploring the anatomy of a connectivity upgrade and why installation is not always plug and play. Words by Rob Hodgetts
Drilling holes for broadband
Exploring the anatomy of a connectivity upgrade and why installation is not always plug and play. Words by Rob Hodgetts
BACK IN the day, his client, a Scottish coal mine owner, was keen to have the latest technology on his year-old King Air.
Paul Kinch, now MD MRO at Gama Aviation, suggested installing the fledgling Aircel ST3100 Iridium satphone.
“It was basically a telephone, it sounded like a telephone, but properly plumbed in and functional,” Kinch tells us.
“It was the first value-for-money system. It was about $50,000, which was a lot of money in those days, but it worked.”
The client was delighted. He was excited to be able to make calls in flight. It wasn’t a universal feeling at the time though.
“There was quite a lot of animosity towards phones and tech, a lot of people said they didn’t want to be reached in the plane,” Kinch says.
For Nicholas Correnti, founder and CEO, NICHOLAS AIR, the idea of onboard internet was “like something out of the Jetsons”. And anyway, flying for him was the perfect time to “disconnect from the world”. “It was my peaceful time. It was like a little mini sabbatical,” he says.
However, times have changed. Gulfstream Aerospace tells us it performs about 250 connectivity installations and upgrades across its network every year.
“Connectivity has become an increasingly important part of the overall aircraft ownership experience,” Lor Izzard, senior vice president, Gulfstream Customer Support, tells us. “Customers are primarily focused on an in-flight connectivity experience that is seamless, consistent and reliable.”
A key milestone was the introduction of Inmarsat’s Jet ConneX in 2016, which “set a new standard”, says Izzard. Today, more than 1,000 Gulfstream aircraft operate with this solution.
“Low-latency is also a popular feature amongst our customers, enabling capabilities like video conferencing and the ability to stream multiple HD and video streams simultaneously,” he adds. “Worldwide coverage and VPN performance are also equally important, ensuring customers can stay connected whenever and wherever they may be.”
Gulfstream takes a “collaborative, customer-first approach”, focusing on understanding clients’ “needs, expectations and mission requirements” to provide customised options, he adds.
Justin Vena, senior installations sales rep, Duncan Aviation has also seen “unprecedented” demand over the past few years.
“When I started working at Duncan Aviation in ‘99, doing internet solutions on airplanes wasn’t a thing. Voice was, data link was, but gradually over the years I’ve had to become a bit of a connectivity expert,” he says.
“The appetite for doing connectivity on aircraft has grown to the point we’re quoting [on it] for almost every airplane that comes across my plate.”
A typical workflow might be that a principal would ask their fight department for better internet. Their flight department would get in touch with the installer who would ask questions about the specific jet, the intended missions, the likely connectivity needs of the customer and budget.
Vena, however, suggests the axis has been tilted.
“A couple of years ago, a little-known fellow by the name of Elon Musk started talking to the world about Starlink and how it was coming to airplanes,” he says.
Duncan Aviation technicians work on a Starlink install on a Bombardier Challenger 300.
Duncan Aviation technicians work on a Starlink install on a Bombardier Challenger 300.
“He wasn’t just talking to us. More importantly, he was talking to aircraft owners, a lot of whom saw him as a peer. So the quote requests started to change from, ‘We need better internet’ to ‘Give me a quote for Starlink.’”
That is where that intended use conversation is crucial, given the operational and geographic limitations of certain connectivity solutions.
“A great example of that would be India. It is probably the most restrictive in the world about what they allow to be used for communication systems inside their airspace,” adds Vena, referencing Starlink’s regulatory unavailability in a swathe of countries including India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.
Gama does “about 10-15” connectivity installations a year, of which about 50% are based on owners requesting a particular piece of equipment, according to Kinch. But sometimes, he says, brand awareness gets in the way of operational needs.
“If you mention a vacuum cleaner, you say a Hoover, don’t you?” he adds. “But Hoover’s a brand. Often people just ring me up and say, ‘I want Starlink’. We’re still in the middle of a Starlink wave, but this year we’ve been seeing a lot more requests for Gogo Galileo as well.”
Another upside to installing a premium connectivity solution is in the resale value of the aircraft. Kinch’s team recently installed Starlink on a Global, which had been bought by a broker to sell after hanging around on the market for a while. They also refreshed the paint scheme and revamped the interior. The aircraft sold eight days after Gama had finished, says Kinch.
“Connectivity is the gamechanger when it comes to selling the asset, for sure,” he adds.
The starting point for any install is whether there is a supplemental type certificate (STC) for that particular aircraft. STCs are issued by an aviation regulator such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to ensure any modifications to the airframe maintain safety standards and airworthiness.
“Especially for Gulfstream’s ultra-long-range aircraft, Starlink high-speed internet has proven quite popular amongst our customers,” says Izzard. “This demand led Gulfstream to pursue FAA supplemental type certification to perform these installations in-house.”
Where there is no existing STC, perhaps where the owner of an older aircraft is looking to fit a new LEO or multi-orbit system, the OEM or the installer would have to conduct extensive engineering analysis, flight testing and certification management. Often the cost and considerable extra time involved (sometimes up to 18 months) is a competitive dealbreaker for that installation.
Even with the right STC, lead time for the equipment, scheduling when to undertake the work and likely installation duration, and therefore aircraft downtime, is a key part of the initial conversation.
“Gulfstream works closely with customers to plan connectivity installations and upgrades during a time that’s most convenient for them and their aircraft,” says Izzard. “We recommend planning up to a year in advance of the anticipated service to ensure a smooth experience with minimal downtime.
He adds: “Timing varies and is specific to the individual needs of the customer. It is driven by a variety of factors including the specific aircraft configuration, selected solution, interior access and level of integration required.”
Gama Aviation installed Starlink on a Bombardier Global Express XRS.
Gama Aviation installed Starlink on a Bombardier Global Express XRS.
Vena describes how sometimes a client will ask whether they can get Starlink fitted during a seven-day annual inspection. The answer is no. “We can do Starlink for you at the same time, but the effort is significant,” he says.
“Interior access alone on some of these bigger airplanes is about 10 days out and two weeks in.”
He explains how the headliner needs to be removed to access the top of the fuselage, with every item inspected, documented and stored in a safe location. On the way back in, it is verified again to make sure there is no new damage.
“All that kind of due diligence takes time,” he says. “That’s not counting the time that you’re modifying the airplane. So the best time to do these is when you’re doing a major inspection because that saves you interior removal costs. Your downtime is overlapping and collaborative.”
Alongside internal wiring and the addition of routers and battery packs, a key part of the installation is fitting the new antenna to the tail or fuselage, including drilling holes and adding doublers, or reinforced sections to preserve the structural integrity. The fitting of these antennas comes with strict guidelines, based on the STC for each aircraft determining where they should be located.
“So you map all that out and you start doing the structural portion and there’s a constellation of drilling into the skin that needs to happen. It looks like a star map,” adds Vena.
One hurdle that can come up is if there is an existing antenna in the way or perhaps a life raft in a cabinet where the Wi-Fi box should go.
“No two airplanes are the same, we’ve learned that,” says Kinch. “Quite often the challenges can be modifications that have been performed since it was built. A 20-year-old airplane may well have had two or three upgrades in its life.
“We recently had to do a design change to move the existing antenna two feet forward, so there was a cost and a delay of about 10 days.
“It is never unsurmountable. The last one we did was $18,000 to re-do it. It wasn’t a lot of money in the context of a $400,000 Starlink installation.”
Systems such as Honeywell’s next-generation JetWave X can use the wiring and radome of existing JetWave hardware, making the upgrade much more efficient in terms of time the aircraft is down.
Choosing the right system and having an awareness of the installation process is part and parcel of owning and operating a business jet these days. But ultimately for the end user, good connectivity is as intrinsic as whether the engine works. An in-depth knowledge of the hot section is not required.
“I would say 95%-plus just care about whether they have high-speed internet or not? It’s a yes or no,” says NICHOLAS AIR’s Correnti.
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