Commercial aircraft designers sought a supplemental tactical air navigation tool for the Boeing Special Purpose 777-300ER airplane. They found their solution at Astronautics Corp. of America in Milwaukee.
Boeing experts opted for the Astronautics AFI 3300 three-inch flight instrument with a bearing distance heading indicator (BDHI).
The AFI 3300, a low-power, low-heat, passively cooled display has a mean time between failure (MTBF) rate of more than 10,000 hours, officials say. It also features a 300-by-300-pixel liquid crystal display (LCD) that is dimmable and sunlight-readable, and will include an ARINC 429 digital information transfer system.
Astronautics' AFI 3300 family of displays offers embedded processing, graphics generation, and interface circuitry, and is certified to DO-160G.
Astronautics, given its extensive display product history and BDHI systems experience, will be able to deliver a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Technical Standard Order (TSO)-authorized product to Boeing in less than 12 months, company officials say.
"Astronautics' proven certification and display experience allows us to deliver a superior product quickly and at a significant cost savings," says Astronautics Program Manager Matt Frei.
FOR MORE INFORMATION visit Astronautics Corp. of America online at http://astronautics.com.
