Early last month, the EASA granted European Technical Standard Order (ETSO) authorization for Change 7.1 software for ACSS’s TCAS 2000 and TCAS II. FAA certification of Change 7.1 for TCAS 2000 and TCAS II took place in February last year. ACSS, an L-3 and Thales company, expects EASA to mandate installation of Change 7.1 on newly built aircraft by March 2012. Existing aircraft would need to be retrofitted with Change 7.1 by December 2015, and business jet OEMs are preparing service bulletins for the TCAS 2000 Change 7.1 upgrade.

Key features of Change 7.1 are reversal logic and aural alerting for “adjust vertical speed.” The upgrade meets an EASA TCAS Notice of Proposed Amendment and also makes ACSS equipment compliant with EASA’s new ETSO C119c standard, according to ACSS.

“Change 7.1 is an important aviation safety enhancement, and we’re making it available to our TCAS 2000 customers as an easy-to-install software upgrade,” said ACSS v-p of sales, marketing and customer service Jean-Michel Clairis-Gauthier. “We are also offering special incentives for customers to bring their Tcas units up to this new standard.” – Matt Thurber