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There's MAGIC in the Air

By Brian O'Leary
Manager, Field Sales
Meggitt Avionics/S-TEC


I trust that the holiday season has brought everyone both an opportunity and an excuse to relax and enjoy the breather between the end of 2000 and the beginning of 2001. Both S-TEC and Meggitt Avionics Inc will conclude exceptional years in which we certified products together to support the Piper Malibu Meridian and began the exciting process of integrating sales and marketing functions.

S-TEC and Meggitt support each other, our customer base and our collective dealer network through joint exhibits at trade shows including EAA, AOPA, NBAA, AEA and M/MOPA, to name a few. A lot of hard work at each facility has been dedicated to the design and manufacture of autopilots and cockpit display systems.

The new year will provide ample opportunities for all of us to capitalize on the successes of the Piper Meridian program; S-TEC is working on derivative programs based on the System 550, while Meggitt Avionics is working on the first MAGIC EFIS STC retrofit opportunities (Twin Commanders and Citation I & IIs). The verytalented people in the Mineral Wells flight test organization have made the first piston engine EFIS installation in a Cessna 182 to support demonstrations of an integrated Meggitt EFIS and System Fifty Five X autopilots to OEM's and other customers. The 182 installation is not TSO's and not STC'd at this time.

It seems that one of the biggest challenges we collectively face in 2001 is to sharpen and maintain our focus on specifically targeted airplane groups for retrofit and certificiation efforts. The broadly defined category of high performance single engine aircraft, twin engine aircraft, and low end business jets, provides the biggest and best opportunity for sales of autopilots, autopilot upgrades and EFIS retrofits based on STC approvals. We will further refine that target group to aircraft equipped with or having installed S-TEC autopilots and Garmin 430/530 Nav/Comms. In the latter group, the "only" change from airframe to airframe is the airspeed range markings on the Primary Flight Display (PFD) and Navigation Display (ND).

We hope that you share our excitement for the opportunities to grow our businesses together in 2001, ultimately equipping GA aircraft with state-of-the-art autopilot and flight display systems.