EASA certifies Honeywell, Curtiss-Wright 25-hour Flight Data Recorder for the air transport market

ASHBURN, Va. - Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions division, and Honeywell announced that their 25-hour Flight Data Recorder (FDR) developed for the air transport market has received European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) Technical Standard Order (TSO) certification. In addition to the mandatory FDR functionality, the HCR-25’s partitioned design supports the Honeywell-developed Real-Time Access Recorder (RTAR), which enables flight data to be streamed from the recorder in support of Honeywell’s “Black Box In The Sky” connected recorder concept.

The new HCR-25 FDR variant of the Honeywell Connected Recorder-25 (HCR-25) is based on Curtiss-Wright’s compact, lightweight Fortress technology. The unit surpasses the requirements of each of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) defined flight recorder types and adds real time data streaming to support the ICAO Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety (GADSS) initiative. The HCR-25 can record and store more than 3,500 hours of data in crash-protected memory before needing to overwrite the oldest data collected (Record capacity function of received data rate).

Developed for customers that require flight data recorders, the HCR-25 FDR is ideal for both new installations and retrofit applications. This backward compatible recorder solution provides class-leading record capability. The unit’s ability to store more than 3,500 hours of data and secure streaming to remote ground stations reduces dependency on recorder recovery while also providing a real-time source of airplane condition indicators and flight operations data. The FDR weighs less than 10.5 pounds (4.75 kilograms) and includes a 90-day underwater locator beacon.