Honeywell’s new Integrated Multi-Mode Receiver (IMMR) has found its first application as part of a full suite of cockpit technologies chosen by Southwest Airlines for its current fleet of Boeing 737s and future fleet of 737 Max narrowbodies. Along with the IMMR, the suite includes the IntuVue RDR-4000 3-D weather radar, Aspire satellite communications systems, Quantum Line communication and navigation sensors, SmartTraffic traffic collision avoidance system and flight data and voice recorders.

The all-digital IMMR, which features satellite- and ground-based augmentation landing systems, integrates responses to multiple regulatory requirements in a single receiver while cutting size and weight.

The contract, the value of which Honeywell declined to specify, involves a firm order for 200 Max airplanes and options on another 190, the first of which Boeing expects to deliver to Southwest in the third quarter of 2017. The contract also calls for retrofit onto Southwest’s current-generation 737NGs after first Max deliveries. 

The new IMMR integrates ILS, GPS, GLS and VOR functionality, explained Honeywell Aerospace vice president for airlines Dave Luken in a recent interview with AIN. “So it’s integrating more of these radios into one integrated multi-mode radio, and so, specifically, bringing in the GLS approaches in the IMMR as well as integrating a VOR, which was its own separate component in today’s NG aircraft.”

Honeywell Aerospace vice president for airlines in the Americas John Ashton added that the system brings significant weight savings—as much as 20 pounds—by reducing the number of LRUs they need. “That’s good for a number of reasons for the airline,” noted Ashton.

Now available only for the 737, the IMMR will eventually find its way onto other models. The Honeywell executives would not identify which types, but Luken said efforts now center on narrowbodies.

Another new Honeywell product destined for Southwest’s 737s under the terms of the contract—the Aspire Iridium-based satellite communications system—offers benefits such as a much smaller size than conventional units, making it better suited to narrowbody cockpit applications, said Luken. Again, Honeywell designed the unit to provide “significant” weight savings and to potentially replaced high-frequency radio communications in the future.

Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines has already begun fielding another element in the suite destined for the Max—Honeywell’s IntuVue RDR-4000 3D weather radar—on its present fleet of 737NGs, said Luken. Honeywell promotes the system as the first and only automatic commercial radar to accurately depict weather in the flight path of an aircraft; provide turbulence detection up to 60 nautical miles ahead—or 50 percent farther than any other product—introduce predictive hail and lightning capability and differentiate and display both on-path and off-path weather. “Safety, passenger comfort and cost—it hits all of them,” concluded Ashton.