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Taking TCAS To The Next Level Of Safety, With The Magic Of Change 7
Today's growing number of fast airplanes with their high-speed closing rates is causing increasing concern among aircraft operators about possible mid-air collisions.
One of those operators is Dr. Roy Goodart, a prominent eye surgeon who serves a practice in four Western states. To keep his busy schedule, Dr Goodart regularly flies his own airplane. When Dr. Goodart traded his King Air for a Cessna Citation Jet Model C525, the airplane's Type Certificate did not provide for a Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System TCAS II.
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Custom panel installation in Dr. Goodart's
Citation Jet. Insert shows a blow-up of the TCAS display. Installation includes
antennas on the top and bottom of the aircraft.
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Since Dr. Goodart usually flies the Citation Jet-which is approved for a single-pilot operation-by himself, he asked Kings Avionics to install TCAS in it. We installed a Honeywell 2000 TCAS in the airplane and obtained a Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) for it. Our STC is available for purchase by other capable avionics shops.
The Honeywell TCAS 2000, which we installed in Dr. Goodart's airplane is, by itself, a valuable aid to keeping track of other traffic and makes Dr. Goodart's flying safer and his pilot workload easier.
However, Dr. Goodart wanted to go even further and had us install Change 7, an upgrade to the TCAS system to incorporate improvements defined by the FAA from observations of TCAS systems in action. Change 7, while not yet mandated by the FAA, is required to meet upcoming Airborne Collision Avoidance System (ACAS) mandates in Europe. To install Change 7 and a single-pilot display, we had to obtain an amendment to our original STC to install TCAS in the Citation Jet.
Briefly, Change 7 provides much additional information to the pilot. There are 16 different aural annunciations, including directions not only to climb or descend, but how fast to do it.
Now, when Dr. Goodart is out there by himself he has an invisible "eagle eyed" observer with him-not only detecting possible threats, but also giving specific directions to avoid them!
There is much more to tell you about this subject than we have space for here. For more information, please call Doug or Steve Hayden at 801-539-8412.
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