To: arun gera who wrote (1995 ) 1/6/1998 5:41:00 PM From: David Respond to of 3506
Re: EGPWS costs and components . . . I have a couple of different sources that I can't quite harmonize on EGPWS costs. Air Safety Week last month said EGPWS costs $30,000 to $40,000 for equipment, but $90,000 to $120,000 for equipment and installation per aircraft. With about 4300 major airline planes still to be equipped by 2003, that comes out to an industry investment of about $400 million total. On the other hand, a transcript of the ATA announcement mentioned installation costs of $19,500 per plane. Allied Signal is the supplier, as noted, and they are clearly providing the terrain mapping element. AS also is the only STC cleared supplier right now (Teledyne is trying to qualify). But they mentioned that American Airlines, as of late 1996, is the only airline to date to install this system, and they won't be done for another 18 months. That sounds a bit like the Honeywell/Trimble deal. Allied said they could produce 2000 systems in 1998 and 4000 a year thereafter, or more if necessary. Current production rate is 160 systems a month, to go to 300 per month in early '98. The product will be standard equipment in Boeing and Airbus aircraft in '98 and '99, and maybe MD-80 in '99. It seemed clear from the press conference that GPS is a backup in this system. If you figure 4300 major airline installations plus a soon to be required 2100 regional airline installations by 2003 (per regulation) at a system cost of about $35,000 per plane, that's a market of about $40 million per year; only part of that is GPS. (This doesn't include non-US carriers or military planes -- only 260 of 1500 DoD planes have EGPWS.) Comments? David PS -- Rockwell Collins is working with the Navy to develop GPS-assisted long range artillery.