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Honeywell Takes Superjumbo Pride
Honeywell, which does in the neighborhood of $1.75 billion worth of business in Europe per year, weighs into Paris 2005 with upward of a dozen contracts on the Airbus A380, some of them comprising innovative lightweight systems never before deployed on a commercial aircraft.
Of the 13-odd contracts, “there are a couple that jump out,” says Eric Hinson, the Honeywell vp in charge of aerospace business in Europe, the Middle East, the CIS nations and Africa. Among them are the aircraft’s E-TRAS electromechanical thrust reverser actuation system, a next-generation flight management system, a new environmental surveillance installation and a first-of-its-kind secondary electric power distribution system.
The A380’s E-TRAS thrust reversers employ electromagnetic ball screw actuators from Honeywell in lieu of more traditional hydraulic actuators. The Honeywell units, said to be the first ever on a commercial airplane, are part of a system comprising a digital computer, power electronics and an electric motor by Hispano-Suiza. E-TRAS is fitted to the A380’s inboard engine nacelles by Aircelle, the former Hurel-Hispano. It is available on both of the engines offered for the A380: the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 and GE-Pratt & Whitney Engine Alliance GP7200.
The Honeywell electric actuators weigh less, Hinson says, and will require less maintenance.
“We have every flight management system on every Airbus aircraft and we won this one as well,” Hinson says of the A380 FMS. “It’s taken a page out of the Apple Mac graphical user interface,” he says, noting that the “GUI” presentation makes for a simplified yet comprehensive view of aircraft data and hence reduced pilot workload. The Honeywell FMS also includes an improved vertical-profile display.
Also providing a measure of simplicity to the largest passenger aircraft ever built is Honeywell’s aircraft environment surveillance system. AESS is described as an integrated safety package including state-of-the-art traffic alert and collision avoidance and enhanced ground proximity warning systems — TCAS and EGPWS. Included is Honeywell’s RDR-4000 weather radar, which eliminates the sweeps associated with conventional radar, presenting pilots with a complete, real-time image of the meteorological patterns ahead.
“Situational awareness is enhanced with improved surveillance displays,” Honeywell says of AESS. “Conflicting alerts are coordinated and prioritized, parts counts are reduced, overall reliability is increased, and overall weight and size are reduced.”
The secondary electric power distribution system marks another first, as the A380’s SEPDS is the first on a commercial aircraft to employ SSPC (solid state power control) hardware. “There are no electromechanical switches,” Hinson says — they’ve been replaced with lightweight programmable SSPC devices. The SSPC unit yields load management, fault isolation and diagnostic health monitoring benefits, Honeywell says, as well as the flexibility to accommodate modifications and upgrades.
Other Honeywell systems for the A380 include the cabin air ozone converter, air data inertial reference unit (ADIRU), pneumatics for both available A380 engine types, wheels and brakes (in partnership with Dunlop Aerospace), and, with Thales, the superjumbo’s MCS-7000 multi-channel satcom.
“We’re extremely proud of the new technologies that we’ve developed for the Airbus A380,” Hinson says. The SEPDS and AESS contracts, Honeywell says, are expected to generate revenue on the order of $710 million over a 15-year period, including follow-on sales of spare units and related aftermarket business. The wheels and brakes with Dunlop are expected to yield $1.5 billion over 25 years, with nearly half, or $700 million, for Honeywell.
Anti-Icing Valves Too
Honeywell will provide anti-icing valves for the A380’s wing by dint of its purchase of the UK’s Hymatic, a cryogenics specialist established in 1937, in January 2004.
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