International Communications Group (ICG) and Cobham Antenna Systems have been granted an FAA supplemental type certificate (STC) for a dual-network satcom system named Sora that offers both Iridium and Inmarsat SwiftBroadband voice and data services worldwide. The first Sora (the Japanese word for “sky”) system was recently installed and certified aboard a Gulfstream G200. Gulfstream, Cobham and ICG cooperated to obtain the STC for the system, providing the basis for installation on a variety of business jets.
Certification flight testing was conducted from Gulfstream’s Dallas maintenance center on April 7. During a flight of less than two hours over north central Texas the Sora system performed as expected, said Jeff Saucedo, ICG’s vice president of OEM sales. STC issuance took place later that week. The Sora system was operated continuously during taxi, takeoff, climb, cruise as high as FL400, descent and landing, demonstrating maximum SwiftBroadband data rates of 332 kilobits per second (uncompressed) and maintaining continuous Iridium voice communication capability, Saucedo noted. “Some Inmarsat SwiftBroadband service providers offer compression. Once we get a clear definition of compression and average through-put, we will have a better idea of the data rates” customers can expect to achieve in flight.
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