ACSS EARNS 5 NEW T²CAS™ CERTIFICATIONS

More STCs To Come For New Terrain/Traffic Collision Avoidance System

Contact:
Steve Henden
Manager, Communications
ACSS, an L-3 Communications & Thales Company
623-445-7021

Phoenix, June 15, 2004 – ACSS, an L-3 Communications & Thales Company, announced today that they have earned another five supplemental type certifications (STCs) for T²CAS™ – ACSS’s combined traffic and terrain avoidance system. The STCs enable the new product to be used in revenue service for the following ACSS customers:

• Aeromexico for seven B757 and five B767 aircraft
• Air Atlanta Icelandic for four B757 aircraft
• European Air Transport for 35 B757 aircraft
• Virgin Express for nine B737 aircraft

“We’re please with the progress we’ve made with our T²CAS certifications,” said ACSS President Kris Ganase. “ACSS has been built on the principle of delivering on customer commitments. We appreciate the confidence these customers have shown in us and we now focus our energies on our next set of certifications.”

T²CAS is a unique safety avionics product that combines a performance-based terrain awareness warning system (TAWS) with the industry’s leading traffic alert and collision avoidance system, the TCAS 2000. The system provides a powerful combination of functionalities that result in space, wiring, weight and power savings. T²CAS is a performance-based system that can be applied to any business, regional, air transport or military aircraft to avoid Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT), which gives operators more time to clear terrain and traffic with an increased margin to maneuver and reduce nuisance alerts.

Among the patented features is a Terrain Advisory Line (TAL) that indicates where the terrain is should the aircraft continue on its current flight path. The length and duration of the alert line mirrors the cautionary terrain segment within 30 degrees either side of the aircraft flight path, out to four minutes in front of the aircraft. When the TAWS portion of the T²CAS computer detects that the aircraft does not have sufficient climb capability to clear the terrain by a standard vertical recovery maneuver, it generates a unique identifiable “Avoid Terrain” aural-visual alert.

The growing list of T²CAS customers includes Aero California, AVITEX, Gulf Air, Federal Express, Marinvent, Mesaba, Northwest Airlines, ONUR Air, QATAR, Royal Brunei, SUKHOI, Swift Aviation, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Customs Service.

Aviation Communication & Surveillance Systems (ACSS), an L-3 Communications & Thales Company, is a leader in safety avionics systems that increase safety and situational awareness for aircraft operators and the flying public. ACSS products include the TCAS 2000 traffic alert and collision avoidance system; MASS™, an enhanced TCAS for military operations; a family of Mode S transponders; the T²CAS™, a combined traffic and terrain collision avoidance system; TAWS+, a stand-alone terrain awareness warning system; and Dlink+, a communications management unit, VDL Mode 2 digital radio, and control display unit in one package. More than 40,000 units of ACSS product are operating in commercial, corporate and military aircraft. To learn more about ACSS, please visit the company's web site at www.L-3com.com/acss.