An Airborne Satphone for the Common Man

Like many aircraft owners, Jon Gilbert was bemused at why items priced at a few dollars for terrestrial use suddenly acquire telephone-number price tickets when marketed for aviation. As owner of a Cessna 414 twin, he decided to do something about the cost of airborne communications, and the result is to be found at Booth 777: Blue Sky Network.

Blue Sky's vision is a complete, worldwide network of satellite communications, using the Iridium network. In its current, first stage of development, it includes two-way telephone/e-mail for aircraft pilots (hands-free talk, via the usual headset) and passengers. Later will come airborne telemetry services signaling aircraft serviceability status and automatically returning end-of-flight utilization data to the headquarters of an aircraft operator's fleet.

A further option will be transmission of positional information, enabling the aircraft's progress to be followed on a ground PC. A more rapid surfing of the Internet than currently provided by satphones is likely in time.

This is to airborne communications "what the Eclipse is to the aviation community: a clean-sheet-of-paper design," said Gilbert at the convention yesterday. The parallel is apt, for the economy of the installation is such that some MROs are reticent to install it because the profit margin is not high enough. Equipment prices vary from $1,995 for baseline equipment to $9,295 for the corporate version.

Installation in a pressurized business aircraft would typically take six man-days. That description "in" is, even then, slightly misleading, as the Motorola 9500-series telephone is dropped into the flight bag after landing and can be used in its land mode from business meeting or hotel.

It's not quite a Radio Shack, do-it-yourself installation, but the price is nearer to reality than some associated with airborne communications.

By Paul Jackson