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Helicopter Warning System Avoids Obstacles and Mistakes

SANDEL AVIONICS INC.

CEO: Gerry Block.

Revenue: Sandel is private and does not disclose revenue.

No. of local employees: 35.

Investors: Gerry Block and other unnamed investors.

Headquarters: Vista.

Year founded: 1998.

What makes the company innovative: Produces helicopter avionics with advanced proprietary features.

Key factor for success: The continued strength of the aviation market.

Sandel Avionics Inc. is working to take the annoyance out of the helicopter cockpit.

Instruments can often give false alarms about perceived dangers.

Sandel has rethought the instrument known as the terrain awareness and warning system, or TAWS, which warns a pilot of hazards such as mountain peaks, wires or other obstacles. The Vista-based company has come up with a helicopter-based TAWS model that produces fewer of what the industry calls “nuisance alerts.”

TAWS systems that overreact to a situation can “become useless,” said a Sandel spokeswoman, adding that pilots may elect to turn them off.

The Sandel HeliTAWS allows a pilot to select the sensitivity of the device, said spokeswoman Reb Risty. “We have eliminated nuisance alerts all the way down to the ground,” she said.

The device shows the terrain and obstacles on a video display much like the one on an automobile GPS. When needed, it gives the pilot audio warnings of approaching danger.

Even if it didn’t have its unique algorithm that cuts down on nuisance alerts, Sandel’s HeliTAWS would be innovative.

Sandel has compiled a database of all the power lines in the United States, as well as other wires that might be a hazard to aircraft. That database goes into its terrain awareness electronics, which show power lines on the display.

Lives on the Line

The danger of power lines can’t be understated. A helicopter recently crashed in a river gorge in France after it hit electrical wires; six people died in the accident.

Companies such as Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., a unit of aerospace giant United Technologies Corp. and the maker of the Black Hawk helicopter, are installing a military standard HeliTAWS in its helicopters. Recently, Sandel announced that HeliTAWS will go into all new factory built helicopters from Korea Aerospace Industries.

Ken Piland, avionics manager with Hangar One Avionics Inc. at McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad, sells aircraft electronics from a variety of makers to the general aviation and corporate markets. He says Sandel has made a niche for itself in the areas of displays and terrain warning systems.

“They make a very, very good product,” said Dewey Conroy, vice president and chief operating officer of Pacific Coast Avionics Corp., a retailer near Portland, Ore.


The Competition

Conroy reports makers such as Garmin Ltd. and Aspen Avionics Inc. have eclipsed Sandel’s sales in the market for primary navigation displays — a type of avionics that is different from TAWS. Pacific Coast serves the general aviation market.

Garmin, based near Kansas City, Kansas, is a big company to have as a competitor. It reported $2.8 billion in revenue in 2011.

Sandel is privately held and does not release revenue.

The company has 16,000 square feet of building space in Vista, as well as a technical support site in North Carolina. It splits its business evenly between military and civilian work, Risty said.

Most of Sandel’s revenue comes from primary navigation displays, attitude displays and TAWS for fixed-wing aircraft, Risty said. Customers are only beginning to adopt helicopter TAWS, she said.

However, Risty said, Sandel is working to become a leader in the helicopter terrain warning system market.

Risty reported that Sandel is now consulting with governments in other countries, compiling a database of overhead wires for systems sold in

international markets.

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