General Electricals: FlightPulse for Business Jets Helps Operators Climb to New Heights in Operational Safety

GE Digital announced at the National Business Aviation Association’s Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (NBAA-BACE) the availability of FlightPulse® for Business Jets, a configurable modular Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) application that is designed to put data key to operational decisions directly in the hands of business jet pilots. With FlightPulse for Business Jets, operators can leverage GE Digital’s library of safety events built from decades of industry experience in aviation software to help increase operational safety.

Longtime customer Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., which currently has more than 3,000 aircraft in service around the world, is the development partner for FlightPulse for Business Jets. Gulfstream pilots collaborated with GE Digital to adapt the software for the business jet industry—and Gulfstream will continue to provide continuous feedback on data integrity for their aircraft, further improving GE Digital’s ability to provide quality safety analysis to operators.

Designed by pilots, for pilots, FlightPulse has been used by commercial airlines since 2017 and provides access to data like never before. The Pre-flight module is designed to provide aggregated data from across the operation to enable more informed fuel decisions and departure safety briefings. The Post-flight module is engineered to provide secure access to data from a pilot’s individual flight history, allowing them to analyze their own operation of the aircraft in relation to their peers and self-discover areas to help refine piloting technique and capture efficiencies.

FlightPulse for Business Jets is an offering that is designed to serve as an extension of the Corporate Flight Operations Quality Assurance (C-FOQA) flight safety program. C-FOQA has been administered by GE since 2012 and is a community that includes over 350 corporate flight departments, all collaborating in the name of making the skies safer. The business jet version of FlightPulse is designed to provides the same industry-wide benchmarking insights produced by the C-FOQA program studies but delivers them directly into the hands of constituent pilots.

“We were pleased to partner with GE Digital to help adapt this software for the business aircraft industry,” said Vicki Britt, Gulfstream’s Senior Vice President of Engineering, Innovation, and Flight. “FlightPulse collects and analyzes the data captured for each one of our flights and puts insights into the hands of our pilots. It gives us the ability to distill the same areas of awareness in real-time as trends evolve and is a great safety differentiator.”

FlightPulse is designed to be a user-friendly intuitive interface that displays easily digestible information with automated integration, cleansing, and data validation. Data from the EMS platform can be organized specifically for the needs of a pilot. Pilots can access their data securely and privately through the mobile app. The solution is intended to provide four key operational benefits:

Safety – Familiarizes pilots with industry-wide common threats and events for each aircraft type through a user-friendly intuitive interface that displays easily digestible information.
Mobility – Facilitates a secure iOS app with private access to a pilot’s own flights, directly from their EFB.
Empowerment – Creates self-learning moments and enable continuous improvement.
“The future of flight may evolve, but safety will always take priority,” said Andrew Coleman, General Manager of GE Digital’s Aviation Software business. “This breakthrough solution puts data to work to produce insights that enable enhanced operator safety and efficiency. Instead of relying on disconnected data sources to prepare for and review flights, with FlightPulse pilots have access to data in a digital transfer of information from safety teams.”

This news strengthens an already existing partnership between GE and Gulfstream. Today, Gulfstream customers benefit from GE’s Aircraft Health and Trend Monitoring (AHTMS) powered PlaneConnect HTM on the Gulfstream G500, G600, G650, and G650ER business jets. The AHTMS continuously acquires aircraft performance data to help identify problems before they occur, assists in troubleshooting difficult to diagnose issues, and seamlessly integrates with C-FOQA by providing automated data download and forwarding.