The Racal/Honeywell team's new Aero-1 Satcom system has completed all necessary FAA certification work on the Boeing 737-800 with Hainan Airlines and has undertaken initial certification work with Royal Air Maroc, the Aero-1 launch customer. This is the first Aero-1 system reaching the market.

Inmarsat Aero-1 service operates in the spot beams of new-generation Inmarsat-3 satellites. Since spot beams have lower power requirements, lower power high-power amplifiers (HPA) can be used and smaller intermediate gain antennas can be installed for operation. This provides lower cost of acquisition, less weight and potentially lower access fees for airlines, business jets and the military or government operators dependent on satellite communications for cockpit and cabin services.

All services found on the Aero-H systems are available with Aero-1 including: cockpit voice, allow instantaneous communication with operations, maintenance and air traffic control, passenger telephone, passenger fax, new and weather broadcasts, interactive passenger services and PC data capability. The three channel systems consist of a Satellite Data Unit (SDU) and an HPA.

MCS-3000 Aero-1 system capability can be expanded to six channel MCS-6000 Aero-1 version by adding a 4 MCU radio frequency unit. The addition of the intermediate gain antenna and diplexer/low noise amplifier completes the system. No external beam unit is required as with Aero-H as the new 20W HPAs contain this function.

Canadian Marconi Company, which holds the majority share of Aero-H antennas, is Racal/Honywell's exclusive supplier of antennas for the Aero-1 systems.