FAA awards major information display system contract to All Weather, Inc.

All Weather, Inc. (AWI), a leading manufacturer of accurate, highly dependable, automated weather information systems, meteorological sensors, and information display systems, today announced that the FAA has awarded a small-business set-aside contract to AWI to replace all of the approximately 2,300 aging Integrated Display Systems (IDS4).

The contract will also support the FAA’s plan for scheduled replacement and updating of ACE-IDS displays (approximately 900 workstations), followed by replacement of the En Route Information Display System workstations (ERIDS – approximately 1,800 workstations). The contract also covers installing or replacing displays at several hundred smaller control towers that currently have either no or very limited information, weather, and related display tools. The total contract value is $66.4 million over a six-year period.

The FAA will fulfill a key milestone in the NextGen transition with this major purchase of a common Information Display System spanning both terminal and en route air traffic controller work environments. Subject to future funding, a total buy of potentially 6,000+ workstation processors and displays is anticipated. By the middle of this decade the FAA will have a common, state-of-the-art platform across all domains for instant, uniform, interactive transmission and display of weather and related safety-critical information. These capabilities are an integral feature of the FAA’s Enterprise Architecture, and are compatible with the FAA’s System Wide Information Management (SWIM) strategy and architecture. A number of DoD facilities will be supported as well.

Jason Hall, President of AWI, was enthusiastic in his response to the award.

“Being selected for such an important FAA program is an honor and a great compliment to AWI. FlexIDS will bring expanded and dynamic data display and dissemination capabilities to the FAA and Military customers around the globe.”

Don Soenen, Chairman of AWI, commented “AWI’s FlexIDS product is an ideal platform for the FAA’s Integrated Display System Replacement Program. With software development, hardware integration, program management, installation and training all provided internally by AWI personnel, we can effectively manage and control the entire project for the benefit of the flying public.”

The new IDS system is designed around an open architecture, uses touch screen technology, has full redundancy, and interfaces to both existing and planned weather and FAA information networks. Later this year the first article will be delivered to the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center for acceptance testing. The first facility installations will occur in early 2011 and will continue through 2015.