Mark Huber is an aviation industry veteran who has worked in the flight training, aircraft sales, aircraft component, and airport development businesses. He has flight time in more than 50 different and diverse aircraft, including helicopters, aerobatic aircraft, vintage warbirds, jet fighters, business jets and turboprops, and transport-category aircraft. He has jumped out of several of these—on purpose—with a parachute. His defense and aviation journalism has been published in a variety of national and international periodicals.

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Mark Huber

Outerlink is collaborating to gain&nbsp;FAA supplemental type certificate (STC) approval for its Air IP connectivity system for the Bell 407 helicopter.&nbsp;Sterling Helicopter—which is providing the engineering for&nbsp;and will hold&nbsp;the STC—plans to seek installation approvals by year-end from international regulators, including EASA,&nbsp;Brazil’s ANAC, and Transport Canada, for use in more Part 27 and Part 29 helicopter models. The Marion County (Florida) Sheriff’s office (MSCO)&nbsp;is providing its Bell 407 for all related testing and initial installation to be performed by MRO AeroBrigham.&nbsp;
“We are fully aware of satellite [connectivity] limitations for helicopters, so we decided to build a system that could keep the customers connected and provide them with a triple redundant bonded [ground-based] network that would minimize any loss of service or interruption during flight,” said Jeff Warner, Outerlink v-p.&nbsp;
Air IP can stream HD video to and from helicopters across multiple devices simultaneously at customer-tested rates of between 7 to 20 Mbps of bandwidth for the entire flight duration and allowed a customer to conduct an uninterrupted Zoom meeting during the flight,&nbsp;according to the company.
“We had heard good things about the Air IP system but wanted to see it for ourselves and ensure it delivered bandwidth in both directions,” said MCSO aviation unit commander Darren Bruner. “It gave us solid performance in transmitting and receiving, so we agreed to let Outerlink use our newest 407 for the STC development.”&nbsp;
The system has already been STC'd for the Leonardo AW139 intermediate-twin helicopter.

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