Aviation Communication & Surveillance Systems (ACSS), a joint venture company of L-3 Communications and Thales, is riding a wave of interest in surveillance-type avionics products such as TCAS units and transponders. Key ACSS products that the company is highlighting at the L-3 booth (No. C8132) include The TCAS 3000SP (surveillance processor), which runs the latest TCAS change 7.1 software and the RCZ-852 transponder, which was just certified on Cessna’s Citation Mustang. ACSS also announced that Hawker Beechcraft selected TCAS 3000SP for the Hawker 4000.
Change 7.1 is expected to be required under a mandate by EASA, according to Jean-Michel Clairis-Gauthier, ACSS vice president of sales, marketing and business development, although an announcement about that mandate remains pending. When the mandate is finalized, Clairis-Gauthier expects that change 7.1 will need to be included in newly built aircraft operating in European airspace no later than March 2012 and December 2015 for retrofit installations. The mandate, he said, “should be coming any time.”
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