Flying Colours rolls out Satcom Direct Router (SDR) installations

Flying Colours Corp. will be attending Middle East and North Africa Business Aviation Association (MEBAA) 2016, having announced it has completed its first installations of the Satcom Direct router (SDR). The first was fitted as part of a Global 5000 cabin refurbishment package, and the second as part of a new Global 5000 completion project for an undisclosed private Middle Eastern owner. 

Whilst crew and passengers on this aircraft are already benefiting from the SD services, including the Global VT option, the aircraft is now expected to return to the Flying Colours Peterborough, Ont. facility in early 2017 to have the supplemental SD WiFi Hub installed. This will add functionality to, and augment the performance of, the existing SDR.

This is the first time Flying Colours will have fitted the complete suite of SD router options onto an aircraft.

Flying Colours Corp. has been a reseller for Satcom Direct products for over three years, and these initial installations serve to strengthen the existing relationship with the Florida-based company. It is anticipated that further SDR installations will come online as the number of large cabin, long-range aircraft move through the Flying Colours facility increases.

“The SDR is a very clever piece of technology that enhances cabin communications, information provision and entertainment options,” said Eric Gillespie, executive VP, Flying Colours. “With its ability to adapt to existing and new harness wiring, it is a product that we are advising clients to install to future proof their connectivity needs. The addition of the SD WiFi Hub is an intelligent way of maximizing the full range of SD services, ensuring powerful bandwidth and consistent connectivity throughout the cabin.”

The SDR enables the use of personal smart phones for text and voice calling, optimizes bandwidth for connectivity to the Internet, and can stream data around the world. It also supports the SD Pro flight operations management platform.

“We anticipate that we’ll see demand for this piece of technology grow exponentially as owners and operators begin to expect their ground environment to be replicated in the air,” said Gillespie.

Flying Colours will be promoting its suite of technology solutions during this year’s MEBA. The latest installation underlines the expanding range it can offer to completion and retrofit clients on a wide variety of aircraft models.

Just under a year ago it announced its collaboration with INAIRVATION as the North American installation facility for the pre-engineered retrofit solutions, which incorporates the nice HD cabin management and inflight entertainment system (CMS/IFE) from Lufthansa Technik with functionality integrated into new ergonomic side-ledges manufactured by F/LIST.

In July, it announced it had selected Rockwell Collins Venue system to be a standard fit on all future CRJ ExecLiner conversions.

“Technology requests are forming a major part of completion and refurbishment requests and with this in mind we want to be sure our customers have the widest choice available from the best in class,” concluded Gillespie.