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Gogo Business Aviation shared progress on its AVANCE LX5 on Wednesday, revealing that Supplemental Type Certification and Parts Manufacturer Approval from the FAA were received. This marks a milestone in the progress made for Gogo's 5G program.
Duncan Aviation's Engineering andamp; Certifications Services team completed the first-article STC for the onboard 5G system on a Citation Excel aircraft. Gogo's dealer network and OEM partners are currently pursuing numerous STCs to certify the Gogo AVANCE LX5 system for installation across a range of business aircraft models. When the 5G chip becomes available, a small STC modification will be required before customer installations of the LX5 can start.
Gogo 5G is anticipated to provide ~25 Mbps on average with peak speeds in the 75-80 Mbps range. The 5G is expected to outperform any competitive geosynchronous satellite or air-to-ground solution. Gogo 5G has been intentionally engineered to deliver high throughput with low latency for many users and is expected to meet the increased demand for data-heavy services and applications used by modern operators, and those coming in the future.
The LX5 was designed with the same form factor and connections as the L5, which helped to streamline the installation. Customers can pre-provision for Gogo 5G today by installing the multi-band 5G antennas and an AVANCE L5 LRU. The L5 system will operate on the Gogo Biz 4G network until the launch of the Gogo 5G. Gogo 5G is anticipated to launch in the third quarter of 2024. Once 5G has launched, customers are eligible for a free LX5 swap with the existing L5 LRU.
"Receiving formal approval from the FAA to produce and manufacture the AVANCE LX5 Line Replaceable Unit (LRU) reaffirms our commitment to Gogo 5G as we march toward our launch date," Gogo President Sergio Aguirre said. "We built LX5 on the AVANCE platform as a smaller, single-box option to make the installation of Gogo 5G even easier for customers."