Formation's Advanced Integrated Recorder (AIR) Selected by Airways New Zealand

The units will support training and the work of safety investigators who monitor communications between pilots and control towers. Deliveries will begin in November 2008. "Airways New Zealand is one of the world's leading providers of commercial Air Navigation Services," says Formation CEO R. Nim Evatt. "Selecting AIR to record voice communications for a significant amount of air space in New Zealand shows tremendous confidence in Formation and our products." Airways New Zealand's requirements include up to four terabytes of online hard disk storage capable of capturing 90 days of voice communications. This storage capacity provides instant access to critical information and eliminates the labor and inconvenience of daily media changes. The AIR systems will be fully redundant to avoid any possible single points of failure. The AIR systems will be implemented in Christchurch Area Control Centre, Auckland Tower, Wellington Tower, Christchurch Tower and Oceanic Control Centre (at Auckland Airport). The initial implementation will provide voice recording functionality at all five locations; Auckland Tower will also gain Windows-screen recording functionality. "We selected AIR after extensive evaluation of recorder options including demonstrations from vendors," said Michael Stewart, Engineering Systems Manager for Airways New Zealand. "AIR met our requirements at the best price." The AIR system is used in air traffic control, air defense and command and control centers worldwide, recording, storing and replaying workstation screen activity, radar, LAN and voice data in a single time-tagged and synchronized system. The system is scaleable, expandable, and provides any size facility with the ability to recreate critical events, eliminate manual data correlation, and reduce liability risk. Configurations range from a stand-alone 1U (1.75 inch) server with as few as 12 voice channels to a networked storage system supporting over 1000 screen, data, and voice channels.