North America-based Flying Colours Corp has completed a retrofit of the Honeywell Primus Elite flight deck for a Bombardier Global Express, along with installation of the Honeywell JetWave Ka-band system in an unusual two phase project. The dual avionics upgrade successfully modernised the privately-owned aircraft to enhance the crew's situational awareness and add high-speed broadband, enabling powerful inflight connectivity capabilities for passengers.

The customer selected Flying Colours Corp based on the team's flexibility around the installation process. “Timing was the biggest challenge for sure on this project,” says director of sales Kevin Kliethermes. “Due to flight schedules, the project was broken into two separate events and required all team members to work in concert to be successful.”

The work was completed at the company's Peterborough, Ontario headquarters by the avionics team, who worked in close collaboration with Honeywell, Bombardier and avionics colleagues at the company's Spirit of St Louis facility in order to expedite the project within the challenging time frame.

As part of the Primus Elite upgrade, six all new Honeywell DU-875 displays were installed to replaced old cathode ray tubes (CRT) monitors. The Primus Elite Advanced Features' (PEAF) software suite is optimised on aircraft carrying a full complement of the new DU-875 displays. PEAF adds a Synthetic Vision System (SVS) which provides 3D colour images of runways, terrain and obstacles, giving pilots a clear view of the virtual flight path. This increased level of situational awareness is particularly useful when flying to unfamiliar locations, in bad weather or at night, as it helps reduce pilot workload and consequently errors.

The display upgrade also brings brighter, clearer, high resolution pictures to the pilots, yet the system runs cooler so creates less heat in cockpit making for a more comfortable working environment. In terms of operations the displays are seven pounds lighter per unit and, overall, lower the cost of operations while doubling reliability. “There are numerous benefits to this upgrade,” he adds. “It removes CRT obsolescence issues and it enables updates in the cockpit to the latest technology with a relatively quick turn time.”

The avionics team also handled the installation of the Honeywell Ka-band JetWave system, mounting a new radome, tail antenna and the Honeywell JetWave hardware which when connected with Inmarsat's Jet ConneX Ka-band network supplies the fastest broadband available for business aviation. The high-speed cabin wi-fi delivers improved connectivity services for passengers: video streaming, internet access, e-mailing, voice, cell phone usage and Honeywell's GoDirect suite of apps are now available from take off to landing around the globe (excluding the polar regions).