Avionics News December 2013 - 32

RIGHT: Engineers
work on the circuits
of Trig's products at
its headquarters in
Edinburgh, Scotland.
BELOW: Trig's TT31
transponder

TRIG AVIONICS LTD.

Continued from page 30

Trig continues to work closely with the FAA as it expands
its installation supplemental type certificate. "A full STC is unusual for this class of install," said Davis, but he understands the
need for the stringent requirements. If installations connect incompatible equipment to create systems that don't work, ADSB gets a bad reputation. "The FAA has been all over the data,
and so far it's gone really well."

A WAAS GPS position source is the other half of the
ADS-B system, but many do not fully understand one aspect
of this requirement. Integrity monitoring is part of every certified WAAS unit, but unless it has an output that sends the
integrity monitoring signal to another unit, like a 1090ES
transponder, which then sends this data to the ADS-B network, air traffic control cannot use this position data. This
output capability depends largely "on the software version
in the GNS."
Without a doubt, according to Davis, the WAAS GPS position source is the most expensive component in an ADS-B
system. Ticking through the options, Davis mentioned the
forthcoming navigators, and their expense. Certified blind
WAAS position sources aren't that much more inexpensive.
A WAAS GPS test set, he continued, costs well into five fig32

avionics news

december

2013

ures and must be kept in climate-controlled environment and
regularly calibrated.
Trig aims to introduce new avionics to its product line
in 2014. In 2013, it introduced two VHF comms. With the
control heads similar to the 2.25-inch format of the TT21/22
transponders, the TY91 has a 6-watt transmitter and the
TY92 transmits at 16 watts. They weigh the same, 1.01
pounds, and both meet the European mandate for 8.33 kHz
frequency separation as well as 25 kHz.
In most of the world, Trig equipment has been well received. For the past two or three years, Davis said,
"we've been dominating markets outside the U.S.,"
but in general aviation's largest market, "we have the
disadvantage of being the foreign guys." Trig is overcoming this unfamiliarity by regularly participating in
U.S. aviation events like EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh,
Wis., and by teaming with American companies to
supply and support the company's products.
EDMO in Spokane Valley, Wash., coordinates and
supplies Trig's U.S. dealers, which now number more
than 120. At the end of 2012, Trig established a relationship
with Mid-Continent Instruments and Avionics in Wichita,
Kan., to perform all of its in-warranty and out-of-warranty
service in the U.S.
It's clear that avionics and aviation is more than a business to Davis, who agreed. "We're actually into this stuff.
We have our own aerobatic team," he said, wishing he could
afford to ship the two Pitts aerobats to Oshkosh for AirVenture. But the company did provide the avionics for the
restoration of Van's RV-1, "which was stuck for space and
weight." Looping back to the mandates that contributed to
the company's establishment, Davis said that "as pilots, we
feel the pain mandates impose, so we designed products that
are cost-effective ways to meet the new requirements." q

Avionics News December 2013

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