Honeywell, Curtiss-Wright Develop Cockpit Voice Recorders to Help Boeing, Airbus Meet New 25-Hour Safety Mandate

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Honeywell and Curtiss-Wright Corporation announced they have collaborated to develop a Honeywell Connected Recorder-25 (HCR-25) cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) that is now available for applicable Boeing and Airbus commercial and cargo aircraft.

The HCR-25 was type-certified for use on Boeing 737/767/777 aircraft last year and is scheduled to be type-certified for use on Airbus A320 series platforms in the first half of 2025. The development of this new technology supports Honeywell’s alignment of its portfolio to three compelling megatrends including automation and the future of aviation.

“The Honeywell HCR-25 addresses the need for cockpit voice and data recorders that has been mandated by the FAA to increase flight safety,” said Steve Hadden, vice president, Services & Connectivity, Honeywell Aerospace Technologies. “Honeywell’s collaboration with Curtiss-Wright leverages our joint capabilities to deliver superior audio clarity in combination with data streaming to enable next-generation access to aircraft performance.”

The HCR-25 satisfies the 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act’s directive that requires commercial passenger aircraft to be equipped with a CVR set to record the most recent 25 hours of flight data. The directive specifies that all newly manufactured aircraft must meet the 25-hour requirement, while existing aircraft must be compliant within six years.

“We are proud to work closely with Honeywell to bring 25-hour cockpit voice recorder capability to both new OEM installations and retrofit applications, enhancing commercial aircraft flight safety with extended recording duration and real-time streaming connectivity,” said Brian Perry, senior vice president and general manager, Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions Division. “Working together, we are ready to utilize our extensive experience developing flight recorders to deliver advanced technologies that provide open access for airline operators to retrieve their own data.”

The use of a 25-hour CVR dramatically improves the ability to identify the root cause of commercial aircraft incidents and accidents, which results in greater air travel passenger safety and improvements to training, policies and procedures. Honeywell and Curtiss-Wright’s joint development of the CVR follows a letter earlier this year from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) that called for the installation of 25-hour CVRs in new aircraft production and the retrofit of existing airplanes. The letter highlighted 14 NTSB investigations since 2018 that were hampered by a lack of CVR data because that data was overwritten due to insufficient recording capacity.

Honeywell HCR-25 CVR

Based on Curtiss-Wright’s compact, lightweight Fortress® CVR technology, the HCR-25 is compliant with the latest FAA regulations and requirements for 25-hour CVRs as well as existing international regulations in Europe, Canada, Mexico and Singapore. The HCR-25 provides four channels of audio recording, all with wideband performance, providing investigators with superior clarity over current- generation recorders.

Honeywell HCR-25 FDR

The HCR-25 FDR surpasses the requirements of each of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)-defined flight recorder types. The HCR-25 FDR, when coupled with Honeywell’s Aspire SATCOM system, adds real-time data streaming to support the ICAO Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety (GADSS) initiative and timely recovery of data requirements. It can record and store more than 3,500 hours of data in crash-protected memory before needing to overwrite the oldest data collected. The HCR- 25 also provides a 25-hour CPDLC datalink recorder (DLR) function.