Professional Pilot, October 2018

which fulfills this need at an affordable price The equipment uses the Iridium satellite network to send and receive messages and has an upgraded option that permits voice calling with a prepaid Iridium sim card Passengers use their own phones to send and receive the texts The Airtext hardware the most expensive one out of 3 choices can be purchased for 14950 installation not included On the other end of the spectrum is a portable version of the device Airtext LT that uses a 12 volt cigarette lighter adapter as a power source The cost is 4950 and since it can be carried onboard at will theres no installation cost To operate the Airtext LT a user simply plugs it into the Iridium antenna and powers it up Those operators who need a slightly more robust connectivity experience that offers talk text and basic internet browsing should consider the BendixKing Aerowave 100 by Honeywell It uses a low gain antenna that weighs in at 15 lbs and houses an integrated GPS so that it doesnt have to be tied to another onboard position source which simplifies installation Service is based off the Inmarsat constellation Excluding installation the equipment can be purchased for under 30000 and an umbrella usage plan offers a flat hourly rate for online activities The optional Aerowave router sets up a wireless access point for up to 12 devices SmartSky 4G LTE One of the more impressive options for smaller aircraft is offered by SmartSky Networks The company uses proprietary beamforming technology under the air to ground paradigm to deliver high speed 4G LTE connectivity 84 PROFESSIONAL PILOT October 2018 In the past SmartSky has traditionally focused on the medium to heavy jet market that would be representative of Ku and Ka band consumers But the company has recently introduced SmartSky LITE which it describes as an office in the sky for passengers while boosting safety and flight efficiencies In addition to talk and text on ones own device the service purports to deliver blazing fast internet real time video streaming and large file transmission SmartSky is currently offering a special promotional deal for aircraft with a MGTOW under 19000 lbs Unlimited data with a few restrictions like a 10 hour monthly minimum can be had right now for 75 per hour Honeywell and ViaSat Ka band satellite service If high speed global broadband is a requirement Honeywell and Via Sat are strong contenders in the Ka realm Honeywells Ka band JetWave hardware operates via the Global Xpress constellation Inmarsat and advertises speeds in the 50 Mbps range ViaSat launched the ViaSat 2 satellite in June of 2017 and at that time the company announced users could expect a minimum capacity of 300 Gbps gigabytes per second throughput For comparison ViaSats previous satellite capacity stood at 2 Gbps Anik F2 7 Gbps Wild Blue 1 and 140 Gbps ViaSat 1 Unfortunately in early 2018 engineers noticed a deployment anomaly with 2 of the 4 Ka band antennas An insurance claim is pending Since replacing the satellite is not a viable proposition it was reprogrammed to minimize the impact on high traffic areas mostly aviation but the result was a decrease in data transmission rate from 300 Gbps to 260 Gbps But even with the downgrade in capacity the ViaSat 2 satellite provides an enormous amount of broadband functionality to support global operations Both Honeywell and Via Sat products can support long term continuous streaming and video conferencing while simultaneously permitting low bandwidth tasks like talk text and email As the number of entities vying for connectivity continues to increase from commercial airliners to cruise ships bandwidth is becoming a guarded commodity Theres no argument that connectivity is now a must have Finding the difference between the need to have and the nice to have can bring happiness to the 2 most important people in corporate aviation the passenger and the accountant Shannon Forrest is a current line pilot CRM facilitator and aviation safety consultant He has over 10000 hours and holds a degree in behavioral psychology Honeywell offers 2 antenna sizes to deliver Ka band content Analysis of airborne data use shows that although some passengers are conducting business many are using personal devices on the network for texting entertainment and social media Photo courtesy Honeywell