United Airlines selects Honeywell for new MAX cockpit technology
United Airlines has selected Honeywell to provide a range of avionics for its new Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, with solutions to include the industry’s only 3D weather radar, new 25-hour flight data recorders and advanced traffic avoidance systems.
The latest announcement builds upon a similar agreement from 2018 that saw United Airlines adopt Honeywell technology to first equip 161 MAX aircraft.
Products selected in the most recent contract include a range of products that “reduces pilot workload, improves situation awareness and supports dispatch reliability,” commented Heath Patrick, president of Americas aftermarket, Honeywell Aerospace Technologies. “We are proud to continue our long-standing relationship with United Airlines to provide advanced avionics for its growing 737 MAX fleet”.
Among the items on order are the IntuVue RDR-4000 3D weather radar system, the first “automatic commercial radar to accurately depict weather in the flight path of an airplane,” which scans the sky at 17 tilt angles; the most in the industry. This will be complemented by an integrated multi-mode receiver, an ALA-52B radar altimeter, and Honeywell’s TPA100B traffic alert and collision avoidance system and TRA 100B transponders.
Honeywell’s 25 hour connected recorder – able to accommodate mandatory flight data and cockpit voice recording – may also “result in the potential for better maintenance predictability and operational insight through data analytics,” explains Honeywell.
Boeing and United finalised an order for 100 MAX jets in December 2022 (exercising 44 existing options and placing 56 new orders), although the airline has since acknowledged that the delivery timeline for the as-yet uncertified MAX 10 will necessitate switching to alternative MAX variants in the meantime.
