Cessna Aircraft selects Rockwell Collins Pro Line Fusion™ for Citation Columbus Business Jet

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Cessna Aircraft Company, a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, has selected Rockwell Collins to provide its Pro Line Fusion™ avionics for Cessna’s new Citation Columbus business jet, which is expected to debut in 2014. The announcement was made today at a press conference in Washington D.C.

“Rockwell Collins has a long-standing relationship with the Cessna Citation family through our Pro Line avionics solutions, and we are thrilled to continue this tradition on the Citation Columbus with our newest avionics offering,” said Denny Helgeson, vice president and general manager of Business and Regional Systems for Rockwell Collins. “Pro Line Fusion will bring an unprecedented level of situational awareness, along with an intuitive graphical user interface allowing crews to more efficiently operate the Citation Columbus.”

“Cessna’s customers have been extremely pleased with Rockwell Collin’s Pro Line 21 avionics system which is incorporated into most of our Citation family of business jets,” said Jack J. Pelton, chairman, president and CEO of Cessna. “Pro Line Fusion is representative of the next generation of avionics and I’m confident that our Citation Columbus customers will appreciate the sophistication and safety features that this new system offers.”

Some of the standard features on the Columbus flight deck include: four high resolution 15-inch diagonal Liquid Crystal Displays with Synthetic Vision depiction of terrain and obstacles; MultiScan™ Weather Radar; Integrated Flight Information Systems (IFIS) with electronic charts, enhanced maps and graphical weather overlays; dual Advanced Flight Management Systems (FMS) with Wide Area Augmentation System that supports Localizer Precision with Vertical guidance approaches (WAAS/LPV) and Required Navigation Performance (RNP) capabilities; Advanced human-machine interface including graphical flight planning capability; a Traffic Surveillance System with Automatic Direct Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) capabilities; auto throttle and an Information Management System (IMS) to manage databases and facilitate wireless interactivity with the ground infrastructure.

Optional features include head-up display; Enhanced Vision; predictive windshear weather radar; Controller-Pilot Data Link Communication (CPDLC); Surface Management System; a second IFIS and a third FMS.

Pro Line Fusion offers a flexible architecture providing high reliability with extensive growth capabilities to meet the anticipated future air space requirements, and to support new technology and feature insertions.