Aspen Avionics announced today it has been awarded a U.S. patent for its groundbreaking Connected Panel wireless cockpit system. The patent, first applied for in 2011, is the industry’s only FAA-certified and patented avionics technology to safely interface wirelessly with non-certified mobile devices such as the Apple iPad or Android devices before, during and after flight.

“Early on in 2010, we realized we were witnessing an historic and rapid transformation of how non-certified wireless devices such as the iPad coupled with flight planning applications were being used in the cockpit. We were the first to recognize that we could transform the way pilots fly by establishing two-way wireless communications with these devices to certified avionics to help the pilot with a number of tasks, including flight planning, weather, and information management,” said John Uczekaj, Aspen president and CEO.

Introduced in 2011, Aspen’s Connected Panel technology creates a better flight experience for pilots and owners by wirelessly streamlining maintenance logging, data loading and flight planning activities, thereby only entering the flight plan one time.

Shortly after Connected Panel’s aftermarket introduction that enabled wireless transmission of flight plans from an iPad to certified avionics and Garmin’s GNS400W/500W series of GPS navigators with software version 3.30 or earlier, Aspen successfully won key OEM positions on the Pilatus PC-12NG and PC-24 as part of Honeywell’s Primus Apex integrated cockpit and Universal Avionics’ InSight Integrated Flight Deck.

To enable a more robust wireless connectivity platform, Aspen was also the first to enlist the partnerships of key flight planning application developers to create Connected Panel Partners. Aspen has approximately 20 Connected Partners such as Jeppesen, Hilton Software LLC, FltPlan.com, Honeywell, and ForeFlight that offer convenient and powerful tools to use, manage, and store flight data in Aspen’s Connected system.