Avionics News April 2022 - 39

f it hadn't been for the Federal Aviation
Administration's mandate demanding
ADS-B Out be fitted to a major portion
of the U.S. civil fleet a few years ago, many
fewer people in the aviation industry would
probably know anything about uAvionix. The
Bigfork, Montana, avionics company - 43
employees strong - became well-known a few years ago
with some affordable ADS-B Out solutions to meet the
mandate and calm the fears of many aircraft owners about
being able to continue flying their airplane. Not only did
uAvionix provide its skyBeacon and tailBeacon both UAT
978 MHz transponders, but the tailBeaconX offered both a
UAT and a 1090 MHz Mode S ADS-B Out transponder.
Because the skyBeacon replaced the aircraft's left/port
side navigation light and the tailBeacon the white tail
recognition light, they also offered installation simplicity
requiring just half an hour's labor using a few simple
hand tools. Complete certification required only a logbook
entry from a technician with an inspection authority. The
result was uAvionix grabbed a huge portion of the general
aviation ADS-B Out market for themselves.
But the company didn't stop there. Because most
I
measures 47-by-54-by-9 millimeters (about 2.4 inchesby-1.8
inches) and barely weighs 50 grams. Power draws
on uAvionix components are equally microscopic. The
company's Skyline, a cloud-managed beyond visual
line of sight C2 network, prevents lost links to drones
by managing an infrastructure of multiple ground radio
stations and radios. Airports work with the company
because of products like the VTU-20 ADS-B transmitter
that, when connected to a pingStation 3 networkable
978/1090 ADS-B receiver, simplifies tracking airport
vehicles, especially at night and in low-visibility
conditions.
uAvionix employees are pilots passionate about flying,
they chose another major mission; rid the GA world of
its ancient, inherently unreliable vacuum-driven gyro
systems. Opportunity struck and uAvionix acquired
Aerobonics that created another hot seller, the AV-30
primary flight display for experimental and certified
single-engine aircraft.
People involved in the drone world, however, knew
quite a bit about the privately held uAvionix thanks
to a host of components aimed at both the civil and
the defense side of the UAV market, like George the
autopilot. One of the company's real strengths is the
ability to shrink useful communication devices into
incredibly tiny packages like the micro IFF (identification
friend or foe) for UAVs often measured not in inches,
but in millimeters. The RT-2087 Mode S transponder
Who grows up dreaming of a career in microelectronics?
Paul Beard, uAvionix founder and chief idea
guy explained a bit about how the company came to be.
He said, " Radios and wireless captured me at a very, very
young age. I designed a radio control system for model
aircraft that completely revolutionized the industry. I
innovated the spread spectrum for model airplane control,
a system to prevent interference with other radio control
units on model aircraft. "
Beard remembered that while visiting a hobbyist
friend in Champaign, Illinois, some years back, " He had
a homebrew ADS-B receiver and was tracking aircraft
around his state and the penny just dropped for me. If
a small piece of electronics could identify and track an
aircraft, how could we repurpose that for drones and
solve the problem of drones and manned aircraft sharing
the same airspace? Drones were a natural extension of the
model aircraft world that I was already familiar with.
Continued on following page
avionics news * april 2022 39
Avionics News April 2022

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