GDC Technics has announced the delivery of its first GDC Falcon 300 equipped aircraft to Hillwood Airways, a Texas-based operator. Through the development partnership with Hillwood, GDC is striving to redefine in-flight connectivity and cabin-based media delivery platforms via an open network, offering service provider flexibility to its customers. GDC and technology collaborators Thinkom, Kontron and Hughes Network Systems are pushing to achieve an internet experience rivalling at home media services.

In line with these performance expectations, and leveraging the power of the Hughes Jupiter system, a Hillwood Boeing 737-700 demonstrated strong performance in both service level adherence, as well as on demand capacity during its test flights. These tests maintained a typical performance bundle of 25Mbps, but with the ability to provide 150Mbps or more when missions and passengers dictate a higher quality of service and application responsiveness.

The GDC Falcon 300 system is a Ka-band satcom and cabin wireless connectivity platform for the aerospace industry. Building upon Thinkom's Ka-2517 phased-array antenna, the GDC solution pairs with premium Wi-Fi and media server elements from Kontron to provide exceptional end-to-end performance to all cabin passenger and crew devices. Furthermore, the system is assured to be always on by leveraging a multi-modem satcom array. The multi-modem array is designed to communicate and switch between several Ka-band networks to meet the needs of customers' mission profiles. The multi-modem architecture maximises current and future connectivity options including new GEO, HEO, LEO and MEO Ka-band constellations.

The Hughes Jupiter System powers the connectivity to the GDC Falcon 300 system and includes the Hughes ModMan, a dual high-performance aero modem with a full-featured airborne server and high-throughput satellite (HTS) capacity from the Jupiter 1 (EchoStar XVII) and Jupiter 2 (EchoStar XIX) satellites, all provided by Hughes as a managed service.

“Powering a connected future everywhere is what Hughes is all about, even in an airplane at 35,000 feet,” says Paul Gaske, executive VP and general manager, North America division, Hughes. "It's exciting to see the Jupiter system in action with GDC's Falcon 300 to deliver connectivity for Hillwood's aircraft, enabling the in-flight Internet experience that travellers want and need.”

The certification of the Falcon 300 on Hillwood's Boeing 737-700 will be the first of many STCs for the GDC system. Building upon commitments from other global aircraft operators, GDC anticipates further installations on Boeing and Airbus platforms in the second half of 2020. With these installations, the company will extend the STC/kit options available for installation at GDC facilities in the US, or via its partnerships around the globe, including GDC supported facilities in India and the Middle East. The company will also continue to build upon its experience with Hughes and extend service provider options.

“Our challenge to GDC was to create an industry leading wireless cabin for our premium clientele,” explains Ched Bart, CEO of Hillwood Airways. “Since our inception, we have focused on providing our passengers the safest, most comfortable, productive and connected experience as they traverse the globe. With the new GDC Falcon 300 system, our aircraft will provide passengers with gate-to-gate Wi-Fi and unfettered access to streaming media, collaboration, video conferencing and social media sites, all at speeds heretofore unseen in any airline environment.”

“We are seeing a new era for in-flight connectivity services,” adds Brad Foreman, CEO of GDC Technics. "At GDC, we want to lead the industry with the highest performing aircraft satcom terminals, offering very high throughput, but also setting new standards for reliability and system longevity. The new Falcon 300 kits will offer our clients, partners and service providers a new platform for innovation at price points that allow commercial airlines to start exploring free connectivity options to its passengers."

GDC's Falcon 300 system is available for immediate installations across the Boeing 737 family. The company also anticipates STCs and availability for the A320/319, A330, B787 and B777 prior to the end of 2020.