Two Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots, Wing Commander Rahul Monga and Wing Commander Anil Kumar, recently completed a risky, record-breaking world flight in their tiny micro light plane with the aid of flight following and voice communications via the IridiumŪ network.
AeroMechanical Services Ltd. (AMS) provided Iridium-based tracking and communications equipment for the pair, who landed in New Delhi Aug. 19 after beating the previous world record for a similar aircraft by 19 days. With their location and status constantly monitored by India-based air force control officers, the two flew 70,497 kilometers in just 79 days.'Every aircraft should have this technology on board,' Monga said. 'The communication was fantastic and helped us shave days off the existing record through frequent route alterations and in-flight communications. It was also a very good flight safety aid and would have proven invaluable in any survival situation if the need had arisen.' 'AeroMechanical's Iridium-based patented technology, Automated Flight Information and Reporting System (afirs) UpTime, features pole-to-pole ubiquitous coverage,' said AeroMechanical CEO, Bill Tempany. 'The AMS system can monitor up to 2,000 sensors on an aircraft and transmit any anomaly in real time back to mission control saving as much as $100,000 per aircraft per year through better maintenance, operations and scheduling.' 'These two adventurers were never out of touch during their record-breaking flight,' said Greg Ewert, executive vice president of Iridium Satellite. 'This is a great example of how Iridium's value-added partners, such as AeroMechanical, develop innovative packages to provide critical voice and data links and an added margin of safety for a wide range of customer applications.' Iridium has reported continued strong growth for its mobile satellite communications services in the aeronautical sector, with the number of subscribers up 60 percent from last year. New commissionings of Iridium aeronautical terminals are accelerating every month and the company has seen a 73 percent compound annual growth rate in aero subscribers over the last four years. |
