Clay Jones, President, Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Collins
The Boeing 787 is a pinnacle for Rockwell Collins — for never before has it had so much equipment on a single aircraft.
“It will realize $3.5 billion for us over the next 20 years,” says Clay Jones, president, chairman and CEO of the avionics company.
Rockwell Collins’ major wins on the 787 include the communications and surveillance avionics, the data distribution system, the core network to e-enable the aircraft, the biggest ever flight displays on a commercial airliner and the pilot controls — the first time Boeing has outsourced these cockpit-critical components.
Airplanes remain the final frontier for connectivity, according to Clay Jones, president, chairman and CEO of Rockwell Collins.
It will take another three to five years before passengers will have the same access to email, Internet and live TV in the air as they do on the ground, he believes. “Today the only place on earth you cannot be fully connected is on an airplane,” he said.
The barrier is no longer ability, but cost. The right pricing, he says, will encourage airlines to install the equipment and passengers to use it. Growing demand will then spur investment smaller and lighter antennas to bring access to small aircraft.
Rockwell Collins scored a significant milestone along that path last month with approval in the U.S. to deploy and test its eXchange broadband connectivity solution for business aircraft. eXchange combines the advanced antenna technology and signal processing capabilities of Rockwell Collins' Tailwind 500 multi-region direct broadcast satellite TV system with the broadband services of Connexion by Boeing to enable real-time, nearly global two-way Ku-band data coverage.
Aircraft operators and passengers can use eXchange to speed air-to-ground flight communication, to access the Internet and firewall-protected corporate intranets; send outgoing email or open large attachments from incoming email; get the news, weather or destination information; or view DBS television programming. The system will be launched on the entire Bombardier Global family of business jets; certification is expected later this year.
“We put a remarkably competitive offer in front of Boeing that met their needs both technologically and commercially,” Jones told Show News.
The wins, he says, are a testament to Rockwell Collins’ pursuit of technology (it claims to be the world leader in broad-based Ethernet switching and connectivity in avionics), and its focus on lean manufacturing and operational excellence.
The latter, he acknowledges, are buzzwords in the industry that many talk about but few have done. The results at Rockwell Collins have been the ability to drive down costs and pass them on to the customer. “Yes, we did cut pricing on the 787 bids,” Jones said, “but we did not sacrifice our margins. We are looking at operating margins this year of 18% in both our and government businesses — and that is unheard of in the government sector.”
Just a few weeks ago Rockwell Collins raised its projections for earnings growth this year to 26% on projected revenue growth of 15% to around $3.4 billion. Driving the growth are high demand from air transport and business aviation, and defense electronics.
Jones noted the growth stems from the ability to provide the right solutions on time and at the right price. This involves heavy investment in developing new technology. Indeed, Collins will spend $600 million this year alone on R&D. New technologies include software programmable radios and GPS-based products for the military, and advancements in connectivity for commercial aerospace.
“The A380 incorporated a landmark set of developments for us in Ethernet switching technologies and installing them as a basic airplane system on the production line. We pioneered this on the 767-400, then the A380, and now the 787 on a much larger scale,” Jones noted. He likens the data switching systems to the involuntary nervous system of the human body, involving huge challenges in data management and sorting it to tell the pilot, the maintenance and cabin staff and the airplane’s systems what each needs to know.
As well as the A380 flying here, Rockwell Collins has another first at Le Bourget: the Bombardier Global 5000 business jet, which is the first to be produced on the line with an Ethernet-based Rockwell Collins Airshow21 interior and cabin management system. —John Morris
Rockwell Collins for Europe
Rockwell Collins has established a beach head in Europe’s defense electronic industry with its just-completed acquisition of Heidelberg, Germany based Teldix GmbH. With more than 40 years of engineering and manufacturing experience, Teldix supplies a broad portfolio of complex military aircraft computer products, advanced mechanical space mechanisms and related support services to major prime contractors throughout Europe and has leading positions on major European programs such as the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Tornado, and the NH90 and Tiger helicopters.
