Company Marks Silver Anniversary By Sharing Stories From Their
History
In 1985, two young engineers went to work in a basement to
solve a problem; conversations in a small airplane cockpit are
uncomfortable at best, impossible at worst. Eric Persson and
Mark Scheuer sketched some circuits, connected some parts, and
ultimately started a business called PS Engineering. PS Engineering
was initially a generic name, but a quarter century later it stands
as a silver standard in aircraft audio performance, utility, and
value.
The first intercoms were sold out of the trunk of a car, at
airshows and eventually through a small ad in Trade-a-Plane. The
grass-roots marketing was boosted by word-of-mouth popularity and
one critical factor; the things worked better than anything else
available at the time. Innovations, such as independently gated
microphones, outperformed any competition, and gained recognition
in the aviation community.
By the time George H. W. Bush takes the White House, PS
Engineering took the next step, and introduced the PM1000 (Panel
Mount) intercom. This lead to FAA certification of the product and
the manufacturing facility, and the company moved into more and
bigger airplanes and markets.
After 10 years, the company took on another project where
performance was lacking, the audio control panel. Dubbed by Mark
Scheuer, the "Rodney Dangerfield" of avionics, referring to the
late comedian’s inability to get respect. Until that time,
audio panels were a collection of switches, and a place to park the
marker beacon receiver. Functional, but not value added to the
cockpit experience.
The PMA6000M, introduced in 1995, combined the performance of
the popular PM1000 intercom with an audio selector panel and marker
beacon. The combination resulted in a product greater then the sum
of the parts, as new capabilities, such as split mode, and swap
functions, were introduced to general aviation for the first
time.
Swap mode (ability to switch transmitters from a control wheel
switch) became the first of many PS Engineering patented
innovations. Split mode (pilot and copilot on different
communications radios at the same time) added new capability in
crew resource management that was formerly only found in large
airplanes.
Less than two years later, in 1998, PS Engineering introduced
another revolution with IntelliVox®, a patented automatic
intercom squelch protocol that has seen 70,000 successful
applications to date. By eliminating the need to fiddle with manual
intercom squelch, conversations in the cockpit become comfortable
and reliable, improving the flight experience.
The innovations in audio control did not go unnoticed at the
airframe level, and PS Engineering found themselves as a supplier
to Piper, Mooney, Raytheon, Aero Commander, and Bell, flying atop
radio stacks by Bendix/King and Garmin. The company has partnered
with Honeywell, UPS AT (Apollo), L-3 Communications, and Avidyne as
their preferred audio control provider.
But PS Engineering is never far from the grass-roots aviator
that made the company successful. Today, the company ships as many
intercoms as all the competition combined. This includes the
benchmark PM1000II (most popular intercom in the known galaxy) the
PM3000 stereo intercom (recently enhanced for LSA application), and
the PM1200, specially designed for the worst noise environments in
warbirds and open cockpit airplanes.
PS Engineering discovered that their customers wanted the same
capability in their airplanes as they had in their cars, so the
company pioneered and perfected the integration of entertainment
into general aviation, including the first FAA-approved stereo
intercom, with their legendary SoftMute® circuit. Today, PS
Engineering offers everything from a stereo intercom, to a complete
FAA-certified DVD system designed specifically for general
aviation. Their flagship product, the PMA8000B MP3, even includes a
built-in MP3 player.
The company says each of their products is the result of
listening to the customers and dealers, a relationship that is
built on the personal contact of Mark Scheuer and his team. Twenty
five years has seen many changes in aviation and the world, but PS
Engineering’s commitment to innovation and the "voice of the
customer" has not deviated from the days of walking around the
airshow grounds telling their story and proving their worth.