NASA Awards Prestigious 'Highway in the Sky' Contract to Avidyne, AvroTec, Lancair and Raytheon; Team to Design Safer Cockpit of the Future in General Aviation Aircraft.

LEXINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 12, 1999--Avidyne Corporation of Lexington, Mass. and AvroTec, Inc. of Portland, Oregon today announced that NASA's AGATE Alliance (Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments) has awarded the "Highway in the Sky" (HITS) contract to a team led by Avidyne and AvroTec. The Highway in the Sky contract calls upon Avidyne, AvroTec and their partners to design the general aviation (GA) aircraft cockpit of the future. Work on the contract begins immediately, with final products delivered in 2001. The contract value could reach up to $4 million over three years.

The goal of HITS technology is to significantly increase utility, safety and ease-of-flying. Affordable glass cockpit technology will provide pilots with direct access to all the information needed to safely determine their routes, speeds and proximity to adverse weather conditions, terrain and other aircraft.

NASA awarded the HITS contract to a team led by Avidyne and AvroTec, and including Lancair, Raytheon Aircraft, Rockwell Collins, Seagull Technology and AlliedSignal. The contract was awarded through a competitive bid process to evaluate all industry proposals to provide the HITS capability. A panel of NASA and FAA experts unanimously selected the Avidyne/AvroTec-led team.

Avidyne will design the HITS software using technology which would replace today's antiquated dials and gauges with large digital displays. These digital displays will have an "open-systems" architecture that will integrate the best of today's advanced instrumentation and also easily upgrade to incorporate technologies developed in the future. NASA and the FAA intend that the design produced under the Highway in the Sky Program will define the standard for future GA aircraft instrument panels and will ensure that the information necessary for safe, efficient travel is clearly and intuitively presented.

AvroTec will develop high-performance computing and display hardware--building from AvroTec's FlightMonitor line of multi-function displays--to meet the demands of a highly graphical, intuitive HITS guidance system. AvroTec will also be responsible for system integration.

Details of the Award and Future Developments

Responsibilities for the various aspects of development break down as follows: -0-

     --Avidyne and AvroTec are jointly responsible for definition of
the HITS system architecture, system requirements and overall system
certification efforts.

     --Avidyne, as Technical Project Manager for the HITS Project,
will complete software requirements and complete all software
development of the HITS system.

     --AvroTec, as Team Lead, is responsible for hardware development
and management of the overall program.

     --Raytheon and Lancair are responsible for solving aircraft
integration and certification issues.

     --Lancair intends to integrate and certify the HITS avionics
systems into production aircraft.

     --Rockwell Collins, Seagull Technology and AlliedSignal will
provide enabling technologies in the areas of HITS display symbology,
attitude and heading reference system (AHRS), as well as avionics
databus components.

-0-

"Avidyne's goal is to provide an affordable glass cockpit to the general aviation market. We have made great strides in that direction with our Flight Situation Display product," said Dan Schwinn, founder and president of Avidyne. "The AGATE contract is not only a validation of the technical achievement of our FSD, but also an important milestone in our mission to make Avidyne's open-systems display technology the standard in all cockpits. It's gratifying to know that through the AGATE program all pilots will soon benefit from the increased safety and ease-of-use brought about by Avidyne's technology."

"It's all about expanding opportunities for pilots," said Mary Nolan, president of AvroTec. "As a pilot and a passenger, I'm committed to giving GA pilots all the advantages of today's advanced technologies. AvroTec supports the vision of NASA and the FAA in the AGATE program because it will provide safer and more convenient regional mobility as surely as the interstate highway system gave us cheaper and faster ground movement from city-to-city. We want to make the benefits of personal air travel--convenient scheduling, reduced travel time, and flexibility--available to everyone who flies now and everyone who wants to fly."

"The industry partners in the AGATE Alliance formed a visionary team under the leadership of AvroTec and Avidyne," said Dr. Bruce J. Holmes, NASA's General Aviation Program Office manager at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. "Each of the partners in the seven-member industry team possesses cutting edge technology development and product innovation capabilities. The AGATE partners are leading the industry toward defining and certifying open-systems architecture and the use of commercial, off-the-shelf components for future general aviation cockpits. The government partners in AGATE believe that these specific advancements will open the floodgates of Information Age technologies into general aviation. Together with NASA and the FAA, these companies are taking an historic step in the development of the first generation of human-centered, intuitive flight path guidance displays. The Highway in the Sky system is a keystone for the national general aviation roadmap goal of enabling door-to-destination travel at four times highway speeds throughout the nation's suburban, rural and remote communities," Holmes said.

Avidyne/AvroTec intend to market the results of the HITS program to a broad range of aircraft manufacturers. Lancair announced last year that AvroTec's FlightMonitor, with situational awareness technology, will be available on its new Columbia 300.

"The AGATE award validates Avidyne's long-term business strategy of forming innovative partnerships to bring advanced situation awareness systems to market," said Mark Sandeen, director of business development for Avidyne. "Avidyne and AvroTec have formed a strong partnership to bring certified large screen situation awareness products to market. AvroTec has a long history of successfully managing NASA programs and we are delighted to have them as a partner. We are also very fortunate to be working with innovative aircraft manufacturers such as Lancair. Together we are taking the initiative to bring the best in situation awareness to their customers."

"AvroTec views the Highway in the Sky project as a major step toward getting this advanced technology into small GA aircraft quickly and at affordable prices," said Mark Gardiner, director of research and development with AvroTec and HITS project lead. "We fully intend to have these systems available for installation starting in late 2000 or early 2001. The AGATE HITS team will develop a set of standards for this technology that will lead the industry, and will provide a certification path for advanced, modular open-architecture systems."

There are two stages to the AGATE Highway in the Sky program. Phase I will focus on the design of the PFD/HSI Display (primary flight display / horizontal situation indicator) which is planned for certification by June 2000. This phase of the program will establish the certification basis for the underlying architecture. Phase II will build on the Phase I infrastructure by implementing an easy-to-understand and simple-to-fly HITS Display. Certification is planned for the end of 2001. Phase II will also feature a software upgrade to existing Phase I hardware.

About AGATE

The Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments (AGATE) Alliance (@agate.larc.nasa.gov) is a unique partnership of public and private interests committed to improving safety in general aviation and to revitalzing the U.S. small aircraft industry. Under the leadership and sponsorship of NASA and FAA, more than 70 American companies have joined forces and shared resources to establish new standards and to validate emerging technologies for single-engine/single-pilot airplanes. The AGATE Alliance aims to make these airplanes as safe and economical as automobiles for trips typically ranging from 200 to 1000 miles, as an alternative to further gridlock on the nation's automobile highways and hub-and-spoke commercial aviation airports.

NASA's vision for these investments is to revolutionize mobility for Americans in the 21st century, beyond inter-city travel between 500 airports served by airlines to include over 5,000 general aviation airports throughout the nation.

Through the unique partnership forged by the AGATE Alliance, public research funding is matched by private companies, and results are shared through standard setting and regulatory process. Since its initiation in 1994, the private companies in the AGATE Alliance have invested over $30 million and introduced innovations including improved training, better certification of manufacturing processes, easy-to-use engine controls, improved weather avoidance systems and improved navigation displays.

Together with a parallel program - the General Aviation Propulsion Program (GAP) at NASA's Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, for development of revolutionary engines - AGATE is providing industry partners with the technologies leading to a Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) in the early 21st century.

About Avidyne Corporation

Based in Lexington, Mass., Avidyne Corporation (www.avidyne.com) is revolutionizing the future of flight for business and commercial aviation through the power of today's most advanced technology. The company is leading the avionics industry with innovative products that greatly enhance pilots' situational awareness and safety during every phase of flight. Avidyne's core situation awareness tool, Avidyne Flight Situation Display (FSD), is a highly flexible, open-systems solution for displaying and managing vital weather and navigation information through a full-color, five-inch LCD panel. The Avidyne FSD is a very cost-effective, space-efficient situation awareness product that can be easily upgraded to incorporate future technologies such as Datalink, traffic and terrain avoidance.

About AvroTec, Inc.

A founding member of the AGATE Alliance, AvroTec, Inc. (www.avrotec.com) is an acknowledged leader in affordable display technology. Founded by pilots, AvroTec is committed to making powerful technology available to all general aviation pilots. The AvroTec Traveler is a portable electronic device with a very large (10.4" diagonal), high-resolution sunlight-readable display for cockpit information management. It is widely used in piston-engine airplanes, small business jets and rotorcraft. The AvroTec FlightMonitor FMP 300 is a multi-function display that incorporates Avidyne's current and future sitational awareness products. The FMP 300 is currently in the final stages of TSO application and review. The AvroTec FlightMonitor FMP 200 is a panel-mount multi-function display that is popular for installation in experimental aircraft.

Avidyne, Flight Situation Display and FSD are trademarks of Avidyne Corporation. All other products or services are identified by trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.