Honeywell/Racal Teams With South Africa's OmniPless on Mini-M Satcom

Honeywell/Commercial Avionics (Phoenix, AZ) and Racal Avionics (UK) announced a new partnership with OmniPless Ltd., a South African supplier of Inmarsat antenna equipment, to distribute a new Mini-M aeronautical satellite communications (satcom) system.

Under the agreement, the Honeywell/Racal team is responsible for marketing, distribution and product support of OmniPless's SCS-1000 Mini-M Aero satcom. The unit, which uses Inmarsat land mobile Mini-M, has been adapted for aeronautical use and takes advantage of the spot beam capabilities of the Inmarsat-3 satellites. Mini-M Aero service was approved by Inmarsat in March.

The SCS-1000 is a single-channel aeronautical communications system that provides standard or secure voice, fax and personal computer data transmission. All antenna steering control sensors, GPS and attitude sensors are integral to the antenna, thereby making it independent of other aircraft systems. Other components include an antenna control unit, power supply unit, telephone unit and handset.