News

Sandel ST3400 TAWS Obtains First Industry Approval for use with GPS Altitude

Vista, California, March 7, 2003...... Sandel Avionics has announced that it has been granted FAA approval for its ST3400 Terrain Awareness and Warning System (TAWS) to utilize GPS altitude, eliminating the need for an airdata computer in Class B TAWS installations. Previous TAWS installations have required the use of barometric corrected altitude from the air data computer, which can be cost prohibitive or even impossible in certain types of aircraft. There is an additional safety benefit as it also eliminates the chance of error due to an incorrect altimeter setting by the pilot. In conjunction with this approval, the ST3400 has been re-certified to the recently released TSO C151b (Class A and Class B) for TAWS.

Gerry Block, President of Sandel, said "This is another way that Sandel is continuing to drive down the installed cost and improve the benefits of our terrain technology. The ST3400, with its dedicated terrain display, continues to be the highest performance TAWS system." To obtain approval, Sandel provided the FAA with data showing that GPS altitude had equivalent, and often superior, accuracy and stability when compared to barometric corrected altitude for the purpose of terrain warning.

The FAA has required operators of Part 91, Part 135 and Part 121 turbine-powered aircraft to equip their aircraft with TAWS by March, 2005 to reduce the occurrence of Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) accidents, the largest cause of passenger fatalities in aviation.

The ST3400 TAWS is a self-contained TSO'd TAWS computer and display which is mounted in the pilot's primary instrument cluster in place of the aircraft's RMI. It offers the pilot the benefit of a full-time terrain display that does not timeshare a radar or MFD, and offers the lowest installation time and highest graphics performance of any TAWS product. It uses a 2nd Generation of Sandel's patented display technology to produce the equivalent of a 4" image in a 3ATI case with ultra-wide viewing angle. The ST3400 meets Class A and Class B TAWS standards.

Sandel is a leader in advanced cockpit display technology. Sandel also produces the SN3308 Colormap Electronic HSI, which has become the world's best-selling electronic HSI. For more information, please visit www.sandel.com.