Cabin crews on corporate and regional aircraft can have one-touch access to up to seven hours of pre-recorded in-flight announcements and boarding music with Heads Up Technologies' new PBS600 digital pre-recorded announcement machine.

The PBS600 can store safety messages, promotional briefings and other in-flight service messages in 63 languages. The unit stores up to seven hours of digital audio in its computer memory and can play back audio files with near-CD quality. Audio messages are produced in a recording studio using announcers with specific voice personalities and dialects and accents customized to meet user needs.

The PBS600's key strength is its user interface, says Heads Up president Rob Harshaw. "We designed the unit after extensive interviews with flight attendants at various carriers revealed that ease of operation and flexibility were primary concerns," he said.

The PBS600 incorporates an industrial-quality, backlighted rubber keypad with large, easy-to-push keys and an LCD display that lists available message titles and languages, ending the need for "cheat sheets" and placards commonly in use.

The system allows for automatic messages such as "fasten seatbelts," takeoff or landing preparations, and emergencies such as decompression or ditching, triggered by external inputs. PBS600 uses digital recording technology and has no moving parts. It has no tape heads to clean or cassette tapes to maintain and store.

The unit weighs 2.8 pounds and can be installed both in new aircraft and as a retrofit. The single LRU easily fits into spaces cut for competing products and provides a common electrical installation design with them. It has been tested to DO160D standards and complies with the DO178B, level D, software standard.