Air Canada to Use Teledyne's GroundLink on New B-777s

Air Canada is using Teledyne Controls' Wireless GroundLink (WGL) on its newly arrived B-777s as it moves toward a "fully automated flight data recording and transmission strategy."

Teledyne's WGL compresses and encrypts data recorded during flight by Air Canada's B-777s, and then seamlessly transmits them from any airport, worldwide, via cellular technology and secure Internet to Teledyne's Canadian data analysis center in Ottawa - all without any physical media handling or human intervention.  At the Ottawa center, the data is processed and analyzed by a joint team of Teledyne and Air Canada specialists comprised of pilots, computer scientists and data analysis experts.

Data is typically available within 10-15 minutes after an aircraft has landed versus several days or weeks with manual data retrieval.  Nevertheless, the system also has a download-on-demand function that allows personnel, with appropriate authorization, to remotely command a data download from an aircraft flying virtually anywhere in the world, and receive the data upon landing, at the analysis center of their choice.  The purpose of this function is to give users the option to collect critical flight data from remote locations faster, if necessary to respond to unusual issues.

Teledyne says the system offers "unprecedented" end-to-end system reliability with observed data recovery rates close to 100 percent of all sectors flown.

WGL is now being used by a number of airlines on over 400 aircraft and has been certified on numerous aircraft types.  It is available from the factory on B777s, B-737NGs, and the A320 family, A330s, A340s and A380s.  04-12-2007.

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