Here’s a little fact that may win you a free lunch: Since its founding in 1978, S-TEC Corporation, (the autopilot arm of Genesys Aerosystems), has shipped over 40,000 autopilot systems. When you think of it, that’s an amazing number. Hey, autopilots aren’t something the typical aircraft owner installs every few years.
In fact, while there are not statistics to back it up, it’s another pretty good wager that the majority of those autopilots S-TEC delivered in its first years are still flying in their original aircraft. That’s a legacy we’re all very proud of.
But when aircraft owners do decide to replace, or better yet upgrade, their autopilot the number one aftermarket choice continues to be S-TEC. And for a lot of reasons. First off we have the largest array of autopilots in the business.
Our Product Family
Our product family ranges from basic, low-cost, “wing levelers,” up to ultra sophisticated, digital, three-axis digital flight control systems with Flight Directors and Envelope Protection capabilities. About the only thing our top-of-the-line model 5000 Digital Autopilot doesn’t do is land the airplane for you.
Of course having a broad line of different autopilot types wouldn’t do us, or our customers, much good if we didn’t go to the incredibly great lengths to earn a FAA Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) to enable the installation of our autopilots into a customer’s aircraft.
Earning any one STC is a lot more laborious and costly than most people imagine – I’ll do a blog detailing the process soon – but earning the 1,500 FAA and international approvals, covering over 1,000 types of airplanes and helicopters, that Genesys/S-TEC currently holds has been a truly monumental accomplishment.
And we’re not done. Late in 2015, we earned additional STCs from the FAA and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to install our evolutionary HeliSAS – Helicopter Stability Augmentation System – on the Eurocopter (now Airbus) EC130 T2 helicopter. That’s the seventh new approval we’ve earned for HeliSAS in the past couple of years and there are more to come.
On the fixed-wing side, Genesys/S-TEC also recently received an FAA STC to install the S-TEC IntelliFlight 2100 Autopilot Digital Flight Control System (DFCS) on the Cessna 414/414A/ as well as the Cessna 421, 421A, 421B, and 421C models. .jpg)
And all that is just on the autopilot side. Genesys’ new-generation Electronic Flight Information Systems (EFIS) displays have been certified on over 700 types of aircraft and helicopters across all four FAA regulatory classes: Part-23, Part-25, Part-27, and Part-29.
By continuing our efforts and investments to achieve U.S. and international approvals to install our autopilots and our EFIS displays on a broadening array of new and legacy aircraft, we are continuing our long-standing commitment to proving leading avionics solutions that help pilots fly with greater confidence, awareness, and safety.
Until next time, fly safely,
Jamie