Astronautics Corporation of America is readying its wireless Airborne Communication System (wACS) for entry into service on various Airbus Helicopters' aircraft platforms, beginning with the H145.

This past summer, Astronautics supported test flights to achieve European Aviation Safety Agency type certification on the aircraft. The company has also delivered final wACS software updates for production aircraft.

"Astronautics has completed formal test flights, as well as software updates on the wACS for Airbus Helicopters in support of its various platforms," said President of Astronautics Chad Cundiff. "We look forward to working with Airbus Helicopters as this advanced communications system becomes standard fit for these new production helicopters."

Astronautics' wACS will progressively provide Airbus Helicopters and its operators the ability to:

- Connect their helicopters to the Airbus Helicopters data lake via the Airbus Helionix avionics suite, allowing operators to leverage their data for enhanced safety, optimized costs, and higher availability with the use of Airbus HCare analytics services.

- Increasing operational safety and faster performance computation when preparing for a flight.

- Supporting flight operations with maintenance anticipation for easy decision making for next flights.

- Flight debriefing made easier with improved schedules and unscheduled maintenance management.

- Speeding up defect location and adaptive ranking of troubleshooting steps for easier maintenance.

- Aggregate and securely transfer operational and maintenance data to onboard repository, over Wi-Fi or cellular connection, with cybersecurity ensured via encryption with two independent layers of security.

- Securely connect pilot/crew tablets with on-board avionics while in flight.

- Securely pull data and software updates from the ground to the aircraft wirelessly.

- Store and retrieve hundreds of hours of operational data within the system.

Each shipset consists of the airborne communications server (AFS6400), connectivity module (AFS6460), remote media device (AFS6480), to create a complete air-to-ground, secure data transmission system.