Posted by John Keller

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, 29 Nov. 2011. Avionics experts at Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. in Crawley, England, needed high-gain satellite communications (SATCOM) antennas for aircraft communications in the airline's Boeing 747 cabin upgrade program, which will begin in 2012. They found their solution from Cobham plc Antenna Systems segment in Cape Town, South Africa.

Virgin Atlantic will retrofit seven of its Boeing 747 jumbo passenger jets with the Cobham SATCOM antenna, which will enable Inmarsat SwiftBroadband (SBB) SATCOM connectivity into the cockpit and cabin.

Cobham will install the SATCOM antennas in Virgin Atlantic 747-400 aircraft through an independent supplemental type certificate (STC), Cobham officials say. Other STCs are in progress to certify the Cobham antenna subsystem for other aircraft types.

Cobham SATCOM equipment has been certified for the Boeing 737, 747, 777 passenger jetliners, as well as for the Airbus A320 and A330/A340 families of aircraft. Certification is expected soon for the Airbus A400M and A380, Cobham officials say. Cobham antennas also have been selected for the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 aircraft.

For more information contact Cobham Antenna Systems online at www.cobham.com, or Virgin Atlantic at www.virgin-atlantic.com.