Universal Avionics Aviation Parts Catalog

CAGE Codes:

Operating Segments: Aerospace, Avionics, Flight Systems

HQ: Tucson, Arizona, United States

About Universal Avionics

Universal Avionics, also known as Universal Avionics Systems Corporation, is an international aerospace company based in Tucson, Arizona. The company focuses primarily on flight management systems and cockpit instrument displays which are used in private, business, and commercial aircraft. In addition to its Arizona headquarters, the company has offices in Kansas, Washington, Georgia, and Switzerland.

The company’s story began in 1980 when it was founded by Hubert L. Naimer. That same year saw the development of the company’s first product, the Universal Navigation System (UNS-1). It was completed in 1982 and a year later was delivered to Southland Corporation for installation on their Falcon 50 aircraft. Soon after this, the company reached a landmark agreement to supply eighty UNS-1 systems for the U.S. Air Force C-21 aircraft.

1986 saw the evolution of the UNS-1 into the UNS-1A, an updated version of the original featuring a full keyboard, large color display, and “line select” keys enabling the pilot to rapidly switch between navigation modes.  The rapidly-growing company expanded in 1988, moving its headquarters from California to Tucson, Arizona. As the company grew, so too did their line of products. In 1991, at the height of the personal computer revolution, Universal Avionics introduced the UNS-1B FMS, the company’s next step forward. To keep up with demand, the company constructed a new manufacturing plant in 1998. In 1999, Universal Avionics unveiled a new line of “super” flight management systems. This included the UNS-1F, -1E, and the UNS1L WAAS flight management systems. These systems continued the trend of smaller, more powerful FMS.

2010 saw Horizon Air become the first U.S. passenger airline to use Universal’s WAAS system, as well as being the year in which Universal delivered their 20,000th Flight Management System. To this day the company continues to grow and evolve, each step taking their technology further and asserting Universal Avionics as a key player in the aviation industry.

Products, Services, and Platforms

Products:

• Flight Management Systems: Universal Avionics’ primary product is their line of Flight Management Systems. The i-FMS is a portable system with highly adaptable features making it usable in a wide variety of compliant platforms. Their SBAS-FMS category includes their UNS-1 line and an array of other navigation technologies.
• TAWS: Universal Avionics’ Terrain Awareness and Warning System (TAWS) is a comprehensive database of airports and runways worldwide. Data is updated monthly to improve the equipment’s performance and help the overall safety of the flight.
• Software: Universal Avionics provides a variety of training and flight planning software such as FMS Trainer, UniLink Trainer, Universal Flight Planning, and Firefly, a tool used for testing data recorded by flight data recorders.

Subsidiaries/Partners

Universal Avionics is a subsidiary of Israel-based defense electronics company Elbit Systems. In addition to Universal Avionics, Elbit is the parent company of many other electronics manufacturers such as Elop, ESLC, and Elsira.

 Competitors

Universal Avionics competitors include other aviation companies such as Panasonic Avionics, Avidyne, GE Aviation, Gogo, Global Eagle, and Meggitt.