Duncan Aviation's satellite shop in Houston, Texas has installed its first Starlink in-flight, internet connectivity system in a Global XRS. The company says the customer couldn't be happier, as the installation proceeded without a hitch, and once installed, Starlink fired up immediately.

“Although this was our first installation, the avionics and structures teams were impressed by the well-organised supplemental type certificate (STC) and kit that allowed us to perform the installation well within the three weeks we had allotted,” says Houston satellite manager Mark Winter. “We expected to encounter some problems since it was our first Starlink installation, but it couldn't have gone more smoothly.”

The Duncan Aviation satellite shop in Houston has seven more Starlink installations planned in the coming weeks and months, including two additional aircraft for the Global XRS customer.

One of the reasons the Starlink installation requires relatively short downtime is because it is an internet-only system. While it does have the capability to integrate with cabin management systems (CMS) or any other system on the aircraft, it doesn't need to. Using their own devices, such as smartphones, tablets and laptops, passengers may connect to their office's Virtual Private Network (VPN), stream media, play games or Facetime with family and enjoy uninterrupted coverage around the world.

The Duncan Aviation team in Houston has been installing avionics systems in aircraft for the better part of three decades, and they're pretty amazed by how revolutionary this system is in terms of ease of use.

“We performed power and ground checks, and as soon as we powered up the Starlink system and sent the serial numbers for the aeroterminal to Starlink, the system was active within minutes, and we ran our tests,” says Winter. “We achieved significantly faster up- and download speeds than Starlink had told us to expect, and our customer was extremely pleased by that.”

In early March of this year, Duncan Aviation finalised a dealership agreement to sell and install hardware for the Starlink high-speed, in-flight internet connectivity system on a growing list of makes and models. All of Duncan Aviation's full-service facilities and many of its satellite shops are qualified and authorised to perform the installations.