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Latitude Technologies, a leading avionics design and manufacturing firm, recently announced that its Operational Loads Monitoring System (OLMS) and Air Tanker Information System (ATIS) for aerial firefighting aircraft have been selected as factory OEM options on Viking Air Limited’s CL-415EAF “Enhanced Aerial Firefighter” amphibious aircraft.
The endorsement by Viking allows CL-415EAF “Enhanced Aerial Firefighter” customers the ability to select Latitude’s OLMS and ATIS at the time of purchase. Both of these options were selected by CL-415EAF launch customer Bridger Aerospace.
Latitude’s ATIS offers a fully-compliant aircraft-certified solution that meets governmental requirements including those of the United States Forestry Service (USFS). The USFS has listed Latitude’s ATIS solution as a recommended option for those applying to government-tendered contracts for aerial firefighting. Enabled by Latitude’s IONode and SkyNode satellite communications devices, ATIS allows operators, agencies, and regulators to visualize aerial fire attack data with detailed reporting such as drops per hour and volume per attack.
Latitude’s OLMS offers operators USFS compliance through data collection and recording over the duration of aerial firefighting missions. In addition, it leverages the Latitude Flight Data Analytics (LFDA) Flight Data Monitoring platform to support mission/incident investigation to improve training and monitor standard operating procedure compliance. This powerful web-based software allows multiple users within an organization to view flight data and generated events for analysis critical for safety.
Latitude’s OLMS will enable Bridger Aerospace’s flight operations team to playback flights and evaluate key performance indicators (KPIs) such as airspeed and point of retardant release.
Maintenance teams will also be able to monitor the health of the aircraft remotely and receive alerts for exceedance events enabling proactive inspection and reducing AOG times.
“Viking’s selection of our software programs solidifies Latitude’s position as a leading provider of telemetry and aircraft solutions for aerial firefighting,” mentioned Jan van der Heul, vice-president, Sales at Latitude Technologies. “The Latitude engineering team pioneered the tracking of aerial water-bombers which eventually led to the automated flight following standard in North America — it’s nice to see Latitude’s solutions recognized by major OEMs such as Viking Air Limited.”
