Some notes about the goings-on in 2024 and beyond. Hardly complete, at best highlights. While there are many dates given, this is not in chronological order. Items follow in an associative sequence.
One thing that is absent, almost always absent, is mention of the day-to-day re-signings and small new contracts. There was a nice little mention in December about Jordan Aviation renewing their agreement. They originally signed in 2009.
Airlines come and go. Projects get delayed. Pandemics happen. This makes it hard to complete 5-year contract work. One need only look at the ARJ21 OEM agreement to see how long some things take in the aviation business.
December,
2013...
“AFIRS™ Selected by Datang Mobile Aviation Group for ARJ21 OEM Install” (AFIRS™ 228 real-time data communications and SATCOM solution complete with FLYHTStream.)
The ARJ21 was first imagined in 2002, prototyped in 2007, CAAC STC achieved in 2014, first delivery in 2015, 100
th delivery in 2022, 129 to date.
Sept. 2020, China Express orders 20 AFIRS. June 2022, the first of these 20 was installed.
Things seem to be coming together on many fronts now, though. 2024 should be a good year.
November’s estimate for the contracted
backlog showed an increase to $38 million. (I can’t find a more recent number.) January’s presentation estimate is that there is $78M currently in the
pipeline.
(No idea how the formatting will go until posting.)
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Part One, Weather SpectraSensors WVSS-II acquisition Sept. 20, 2021,
“The WVSS-II product line was purchased by FLYHT from SpectraSensors for $500,000 USD.” “John Schnake, General Manager at SpectraSensors noted, “We are excited to find a good partner in FLYHT where the WVSS product line will continue to provide value to the aviation and weather community. By divesting this product line, SpectraSensors will focus on growing our TDLAS technology in our core Oil & Gas and Chemical industries.” -- -- -- --
Loganair / UK Met. August, 2023, “
The UK’s largest regional airline has joined forces with the national weather service and aviation hardware specialists FLYHT in a project that aims to improve the accuracy of weather forecasts and reduce flight emissions. The innovative partnership is the first of its kind on this scale in the UK and will see all 13 Loganair Embraer 145s fitted with cutting-edge FLYHT-WVSS-II atmospheric water vapour sensors to measure weather data for the Met Office. The sensors will routinely monitor environmental conditions around the aircraft during flight and provide a network of unprecedented scale for gathering invaluable meteorological information via Loganair’s Embraer fleet, which flies three to four times daily across the airline’s unique UK routes.”
Besides Embraer ERJ-145’s, Loganair also has a selection of ATRs, two Britten-Norman Islanders and three Twin Otters.
Total fleet: 35 with 4 on order. If I understand the flange-mount offering, it is mounted overhead and can be used for aircraft with smaller space allocated to avionics. If Loganair finds the SaaS worthwhile, perhaps it will spend the full amount by itself for supplemental installations.
8-year contract, $6.9 million USD.
17 more units to round out the expected full order total of 30 to be installed on a yet-to-be-announced airline.
https://www.loganair.co.uk/our-story/latest-news/2023/loganair-joins-with-the-met-office-and-flyht-to-power-revolutionary-sustainable-aviation-research/ Other meteorological offices of interest that will be approached are in Germany, Australia and Singapore.
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FLYHT and NOAA Collaborate to Improve Weather Forecasting Sept. 12, 2023,
“...today announced that it was awarded, through FLYHT’s wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, FLYHT, Inc. contracts valued at US$500,000, with an additional US$2.8 million in options, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to provide its water vapour sensor technology to help the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) improve weather forecasting and warnings. The agreement is an expansion of FLYHT’s long-standing relationship with NOAA and a recognition of the important role that aircraft-based observations (“ABOs”) play in improving weather forecasting and warning models. The agreement provides NOAA with an initial package of FLYHT-WVSS-II sensors that will be fully integrated with FLYHT’s Certus SatCom and AFIRS Edge multi-channel WQAR for real-time data transmission. In addition to the hardware, FLYHT will provide ABOs throughout flight, including during ascent, descent, and while en route. The initial hardware, funded with FY2023 appropriations, is expected to be installed before the end of summer 2024.” The contract details match up with text in slide 7 of the
January 2024 investor presentation leading me to believe that
WestJet may be taking advantage of the WVSS-II / Iridium Certus / Edge installation arrangement.
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WVSS-II sensor data collection contract... There is an upcoming contract renewal for data collection from WVSS-II sensors aboard roughly 139 Southwest and UPS airplanes that fly primarily over the continental USA. The contract, which includes repair and maintenance, is presently held by Collins Aerospace. It looks to be expiring at the end of August this year. I believe FLYHT has a chance to win this five-year contract.
A recent “Sources Sought” notice and a draft "Statement of Work" updated January 25, 2024 can be found here.
https://sam.gov/opp/fd029d92edd04c1f9d151ed70dc3e371/view. Notice ID ACQ-AONCA0110-24-0029. Scroll down when there to locate the PDF download links, to open and read.
Read about these upcoming contract notices in three previous bullboard posts, starting with...
https://stockhouse.com/companies/bullboard/v.fly/flyht-aerospace-solutions-ltd?postid=35879434 “In store in ‘24 on the weather side of FLYHT’s business”, parts 1, 2, 3.
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Maintenance of existing WVSS-II sensors... Feb. 13, 2024 CEO newsletter.
“...as the FLYHT-WVSS-II production line gets underway in Calgary, FLYHT is well placed to support, upgrade, calibrate and/or replace the 148 legacy sensors which are now nearing end of life. These sensors provide millions of valuable data points every month to NOAA and meteorological agencies around the world by feeding predictive weather systems and improving weather forecasting and it is vital that this key data stream is maintained for the foreseeable future.” Collins Aerospace may own the existing sensors with some in reserve, but FLYHT owns the new ones.
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ECCC contract in Canada, weather data collection, hardware...
FLYHT began working with/for ECCC back in September of 2019. Not that many details have been released, but I understand that the program is successful and the data collection continues. Canada is so big that there is room for a lot of additional sensors, but with a tenth of the population (and budget) Canada probably has limits as to how far it can afford to expand coverage. I would think there would be data sharing going on between Canada and the U.S. since the weather in one greatly affects the weather in the other.
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Synoptic Data Synoptic is an American PBC, a public benefit corporation.
As I understand the arrangement, FLYHT collects the weather data from an airplane along with data from installed sensors (like Tamdar and the WVSS-II). The data gets packaged, though, by Synoptic which in turn delivers it to NOAA.
This statement at the
Synoptic website will need updating to include the WVSS-II.
“As the primary reseller for FLYHT’s TAMDAR and AMDAR-over-AFIRS data as well as FlightAware’s Mode S data, Synoptic is bringing these powerful boundary layer data sets to new users and applications worldwide.” “Aircraft-Based Observations (ABO) data has been shown to be one of the top five most important data sets (measured by impact per observation) for regional and global Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models. This conclusion has been clearly demonstrated during the global COVID crisis, during which the decrease in aircraft-based data reduced global NWP accuracy by more than 20% in some analyses. These aircraft data provide tremendously valuable information in the vertical in the form of a sounding - vertical profiles of temperature, wind, and in TAMDAR’s case, moisture.” Should FLYHT submit a proposal for the upcoming WVSS-II contract, it would be under the name of its Colorado-based American subsidiary FLYHT Inc. Should it be a “patriotic” issue for NOAA having a Canadian company handling the data, well, it really wouldn’t be. It is Synoptic. Synoptic might well be handling the data for Collins Aerospace also, just can’t confirm or deny.
Synoptic has a viewer that permits access online. It appears to be an assemblage of weather data collected from all over the world. This must be what weather modelers and their supercomputers have access to.
https://viewer.synopticdata.com/map/data/now/air-temperature#stationdensity=0&map=0.93/-3.4/-68.5 -- -- -- --
AirAsia AirAsia aircraft were outfitted with Tamdar and FlightLink years back, before FLYHT acquired the Tamdar sensor and all that went with it. In late 2018, AirAsia and FLYHT were planning to outfit 190 planes with sensors, SatCOM and services.
CEO Fernandes told media at the Paris Air Show last year: "
AirAsia also expects to have all 204 of its aircraft reactivated by the end of August (2023), and achieve 100% of pre-pandemic capacity in the coming months."
Jan., 2024: “
The low-cost airline group, comprising units in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, carried close to 57 million passengers during the year, recovering to about 77% of pre-pandemic passenger volumes”.
Nothing lately as to where this agreement sits.
https://www.aviationtoday.com/2018/12/13/airasia-flyht-agree-services-190-aircraft/ -- -- -- --
I'll restate my opinion that weather data collection will be a big part of FLYHT’s future, especially if FLYHT expands beyond just Tamdar and WVSS-II revenue and finds ways to capitalize on other weather data sensors and devices and data sources - like the detection of clear air turbulence (CAT).
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