From space exploration to presidential politics, the Elon Musk effect has been felt in a huge swath of industries and arenas around the globe. Now it\u2019s private aviation\u2019s turn to experience the Musk Effect, as his SpaceX company rolls out its Starlink WiFi service to business aircraft and commercial airliners. Starlink passengers can not only email and text but also watch movies, play online games, conduct multiparty Zoom calls, use Slack and Google Docs that require quick responses, run cartoons for the grandkids in the rear of the cabin\u2014and all at once if necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of our clients was able to take Teams calls; it\u2019s an office in the air for him,\u201d says Harry Ackerman, founder and CEO of private-aircraft charter service Opul Jets. \u201cYou\u2019re getting 200 megabytes a second at 40,000 feet. There\u2019s nothing else like it out there, and it\u2019s a fraction of the cost\u201d of existing services. \u201cIt\u2019s the ultimate game-changer for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starlink leverages a network of more than 7,000 low-earth orbit (LEO) SpaceX satellites scattered across the skies, each hovering less than 1,000 miles from Earth, so data only needs to travel a relatively short distance. That fixes the latency problem that has plagued in-air Internet service since its inception. And Starlink ensures continued connectivity over large bodies of water.<\/p>\n
Legacy WiFi systems for private and commercial aviation operate from cell towers and fiber networks on the ground or from geostationary satellites in orbit more than 20,000 miles out. Companies like Panasonic, Intelsat and Viasat use proprietary tech platforms, each with specific antennae, radio frequencies and satellite technologies. Speed and reliability is spotty at best.<\/p>\n
Starlink will soon have more competition. Legacy WiFi provider Gogo is launching a LEO system it calls OneWeb that will use a satellite constellation owned by Eutelsat, with many fewer satellites than Starlink. And Amazon has Project Kuiper, a LEO system that will expand broadband service to hard-to-reach locations\u2014with the advantage of its Amazon Web Services platform. Amazon\u2019s plans for aviation markets are unclear.<\/p>\n
It costs about $150,000 to outfit a large-cabin aircraft with Starlink. The cost for unlimited data on a Gulfstream 650, for instance, has dropped to about $10,000 a month from an initially cited $25,000 a month. That\u2019s less expensive than legacy systems able to handle only about 5 percent of the data that Starlink can process.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the same sort of difference you saw moving from BlackBerries to iPhones,\u201d says Jeff Shaw, director of sales for the ProStar Aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul outfit. \u201cThe old technology is no longer relevant. Everyone loved their BlackBerries, but they were immediately irrelevant when smartphones came out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starlink hardware also represents a step change. Its signal receptors are \u201cphased-array,\u201d solid-state antennae designed to address reliability issues from the moving parts susceptible to the elements in legacy systems. Gogo\u2019s Galileo system will also use solid-state antennae.<\/p>\n
LEO conveniences pile up. Passengers can access the Internet as soon as they board rather than waiting to reach a certain altitude. And they won\u2019t lose access as the aircraft descends, unlike on other providers today.<\/p>\n
Flexjet, the second-largest operator of private aircraft, began looking at connectivity technologies three or four years ago, says Jay Heublein, president for the global maintenance and product division. \u201cWe looked at every potential technology, both existing and emerging, and we kept coming back to the fact that LEO technology conceptually made the most sense.\u201d Starlink and Musk\u2019s then-fledgling service emerged as the \u201chands down\u201d leader, Heublein says. \u201cIt takes enormous capital commitments to do this, and Elon was one of the few people who actually had the capacity to pull it off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flexjet began working closely with Starlink and became an authorized dealer, and now an installation binge is underway. \u201cWe\u2019ll have all of our large-cabin aircraft upgraded by the end of 2025,\u201d Heublein promises. \u201cAnd our goal is to have the entire fleet upgraded\u201d by early 2026.<\/p>\n
While Gogo\u2019s Galileo system purports to give Musk a fight, Starlink is expected to be an outsized player in the future of LEO systems. Musk is \u201cthe quintessential technology disrupter of our time,\u201d Heublein says.<\/p>\n
Northstar Group\u2019s Craig Picken avers, \u201cThe fact that Elon Musk has his hands on it means a lot of customers are saying, \u2018Should I go with Gogo, Satcom or Viasat, or just wait to see what Elon comes out with?\u2019 While everyone else is playing checkers, he\u2019s playing chess.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Private aviation gets a tech overhaul as Elon Musk\u2019s satellite network takes the lead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":362118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2200],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-362117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ceolife"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n