The miseries inherent performing preflight inspections of transport category aircraft are myriad and well-known to both high-time, high-seniority PICs and low-time, low-seniority SICs—particularly the latter.
The indignities of fingers burned testing ice-protection systems, heads clunked inspecting avionics bays and hell-holes, and trousers split duck-walking beneath wings to check tire-pressures have broken the spirits of innumerable airmen—as has the shame of greeting and briefing supercilious passengers whilst adorned in torn epaulets and oil stains.
Happily, Parker-Meggitt’s iPress wireless tire-pressure gauge promises to afford pilots relief from at least one of the rigors of their regulatorily mandated preflight rituals.
Powered by Parker Meggitt’s long-range wireless sensing technology, the iPress system allows users within fifty-meters of an aircraft to instantly read the pressures of subject aircraft’s tires—all of them. The system comprises aftermarket stem-valves equipped with sensors and Bluetooth transmitters which respectively measure tire pressure and relay the data—via a proprietary APP—to a dedicated smartphone or tablet.
The launch customer for Meggit’s iPress is Textron Aviation, which plans to offer the system on its Beechcraft King Air and Cessna Citation models.
Employing north of nine-thousand individuals throughout over forty manufacturing facilities and regional offices worldwide, Parker-Meggitt is an international heavy-hitter in the aerospace, defense, and energy markets. According to Meggitt's own official history, the company's roots extend to 1850 and the scientific instrumentation business Negretti & Zambra—inventor of the world's first altimeter for the hot air balloon. Meggitt’s engineering acumen has since broadened to include disciplines the likes of flight-controls, electronics, aviation air-ducting and sealing solutions, defense systems, and aircraft sensors.
In 2022, Meggitt provides services and support across a worldwide fleet of approximately 73,000 aircraft.
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