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Thursday, October 7, 1999:

AlliedSignal Aerospace and Altair Avionics Introduce New Gas Turbine Engine Monitoring Product for Rotary Wing Aircraft

PHOENIX, USA ( AlliedSignal Aerospace Press Release ) - AlliedSignal Aerospace and Altair Avionics have introduced a new gas turbine engine monitoring and diagnostic product that reduces maintenance costs and increases flight safety for rotary wing aircraft.

IntelliStart Plus+(TM) , a highly flexible and programmable engine monitoring system, records important trend data to forecast maintenance requirements, which results in reduced costs and down time.

IntelliStart Plus+ can also reduce ``hot starts'' that occur when excessive amounts of fuel are funneled into a helicopter engine during premature ignition, causing engine backfires that can make repairs necessary and reduce engine life expectancy.

IntelliStart Plus+ provides owners and operators of rotary wing aircraft with ready engine performance data to forecast routine maintenance, increase engine life span and enhance flight safety.

It also offers ease of use because the low-weight IntelliStart Plus+ can be mounted to any gas turbine engine in just a few hours in the field or at any one of AlliedSignal Aerospace's hundreds of overhaul facilities worldwide.

IntelliStart Plus+ can:

  • Identify, measure and fight hot starts by monitoring and recording engine temperature and adjusting fuel flow during starts;
  • Collect engine trend samples and monitor events and exceedances on up to 25 parameters;
  • Record maximum values observed by individual sensors;
  • Record flight times and fractional cycle counts;
  • Record engine, main rotor and air speeds;
  • Measure outside air temperature and altitude;
  • Log engine runs and events for post flight analysis;
  • Provide manual and automatic electronic trend data collection.
  • Operators in Europe who are subject to JAR OPS-3 requirements to install an engine usage monitoring system can use IntelliStart Plus+ to record required engine performance data including flight hours, cycle count, turbine output temperature, torque exceedance, gas producer RPM exceedance, power turbine RPM exceedance and more.

    IntelliStart Plus+ is available at $9,800 per unit, with volume discounts. Altair Avionics, a Massachusetts-based avionics supplier, was established in 1995 with the goal of becoming a leading supplier of sophisticated avionics to the general aviation marketplace.

    Utilizing highly skilled electrical, mechanical and software engineers, Altair has a full design, development, prototype, test and production capability to respond quickly to market needs.

    AlliedSignal Aerospace, a U.S. $7.5 billion unit of AlliedSignal Inc., is the largest supplier of aircraft engines, equipment, systems and services for commercial air transport, regional, general aviation and military aircraft.

    AlliedSignal is a U.S. $15 billion advanced technology and manufacturing company serving customers worldwide with aerospace products and services, automotive products, chemicals, fibers, plastics and advanced materials