Avidyne Delivers 10,000th Traffic System

June 16, 2010
System delivered to Cessna Aircraft Company for installation in a new Cessna Corvalis aircraft on the assembly line in Independence, Kan.

Lincoln, MA – June 16, 2010– Avidyne Corporation, a leading provider of integrated flight deck and safety systems for general aviation aircraft, today announced that they have shipped their 10,000th Traffic detection system, which was delivered to Cessna Aircraft Company for installation in a new Cessna Corvalis aircraft on the assembly line in Independence, Kan.

“We have seen tremendous growth in demand for active-surveillance traffic, and delivering 10,000 systems is a significant achievement that demonstrates Avidyne’s leadership in collision avoidance and safety systems,” said Patrick Herguth, Chief Operating Officer. “The introduction of the TAS600 series really expanded the market, resulting in a quadrupling of our Traffic system sales. The ability to meet that demand is a huge testament to Dean Ryan and his team at our Safety Systems Group in Columbus, Ohio, as well as to the folks at our manufacturing facility in Melbourne, Florida.”

“Avidyne’s strategic investments in safety systems have met with tremendous market acceptance and we believe have had significant impact on aviation safety by improving the traffic system value proposition for light general aviation aircraft owners,” said Dan Schwinn, Avidyne President and CEO.

Avidyne’s history with traffic systems dates back to Ryan International in Columbus, Ohio, where the original Traffic Collision Alerting Devices (TCAD) was first developed, followed by the Ryan TAS9900, TAS9900B and TAS9900BX. Avidyne merged with Ryan in 2005 and launched the current Entegra TAS600 Traffic Series, which has set a new standard for price and performance, and made the safety benefits of active-surveillance traffic systems much more affordable for a wider range of general aviation aircraft.

In addition to bringing to market the first active-surveillance traffic system for under $10,000, Avidyne has also delivered key traffic system innovations such as the introduction of Ground mode and Approach mode—which eliminate nuisance alerts, decoding and displaying of squawk code and N-number, and patented top and bottom-mounted directional antennas for improved target acquisition and tracking. Avidyne also pioneered the concept of Heads Up Audible Position Alerting™, which provides ATC-like aural annunciations of threat aircraft and has become the standard alerting protocol on virtually all general aviation TAS systems.

The TAS600 Series currently includes three models of dual-antenna TAS600 Traffic Advisory Systems—the TAS600, TAS610, and TAS620—which actively interrogate other transponder-equipped aircraft, and independently compute range, bearing, and closure rate of these aircraft in order to provide pilots with an accurate display of nearby traffic and timely audible and visual alerts of conflicting traffic.

All of Avidyne’s TAS600 models are fully upgradeable to ADS-B, and all TAS600 systems provide traffic information about any transponder-equipped airplane that is nearby, independent of whether the target aircraft has ADS-B equipment installed. With the addition of an ADS-B “In” signal, TAS600 customers have the ability to show ADS-B-equipped traffic on their existing TAS-compatible displays, in addition to any transponder-equipped traffic that may not be participating in ADS-B.

TAS600 Systems have been certified and installed on hundreds of different aircraft models and are available for retrofit through Avidyne’s worldwide network of Authorized Service Centers. Avidyne’s TAS products are also available as factory standard or factory options at several aircraft OEMs including Cessna, Cirrus, Diamond, and Eurocopter. See www.avidyne.com