Avemex Completes Honeywell Upgrade as ADS-B Mandate Nears

Introduction

Company: Avemex
Industry: Private jet charter, aircraft management and MRO
Website: www.avemex.com
Honeywell Solution: ADS-B Out

Grupo Avemex, based in Toluca, Mexico, provides a full range of business aviation services including aircraft management and jet charter. The company’s maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) center supports business jet and turboprop aircraft including all types of Cessna Citation, Beechcraft King Airs, Pilatus PC-12s and Honda Jets.

Challenge: The Avemex service center is a Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) repair station and Directorate General of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC) maintenance workshop. It provides aircraft on ground (AOG) technical support, major structural repairs and retrofits, modification and upgrades (RMUs). For more than 30 years, Avemex has been a Honeywell partner. Today the firm is a premium dealer and supports all of Honeywell’s avionics solutions. “For Centro de Servicio Avemex, Honeywell is one of the most important avionics firms that we work with because of the large number of aircraft types that the company’s products are found in,” said Miguel Beyer, service center manager, Avemex. “The commercial relationship that we have with Honeywell is strategic to our business. Honeywell provides us with the timely support that we need to offer the best and most effective solutions to our customers. Honeywell is considered part of our family.”

Solution: ADS-B Out enables an aircraft to use precise GPS data to accurately pinpoint its position in real-time and to broadcast this data – along with its identification, altitude and velocity – to surrounding aircraft and air traffic control (ATC). The information is broadcast every second and can be received by ATC ground stations as a supplement to secondary radar. Aircraft that are equipped with ADS-B In can also receive the data to provide improved situational awareness. ADS-B Out will be mandated in vast areas of airspace, including the USA and Mexico, from January 1, 2020 – and in Europe from later the same year. As the mandates near, Avemex anticipates that aircraft operators will encounter issues when looking for upgrades.

Results: One aircraft that has recently had ADS-B Out installed by Avemex is a 20-year-old Cessna Citation X that is owned by an international consulting firm based in Mexico and that operates flights across North America to destinations including New York and Toronto. “The December 31, 2019 limit for ADS-B Out compliance is not a joke,” said the aircraft’s chief pilot, Manual Vargas Ruiz. “The shortage of service centers and certified equipment for all the work to be completed is expected to get worse every week. 

“It would have been a major problem for the owner and the company if we had failed to have the aircraft upgraded in time. It would have meant stopping all flights to the USA, for example, simply because we had failed to introduce a good maintenance program.”

The upgrade took four weeks to complete. It included upgrading a number of avionics units and modifications on the wiring, with Honeywell products at the heart of the solution.