AV over IP gives aviation education centre a flying start

Visionary’s PacketAV Matrix Series has been installed at an education facility belonging to an international organisation of aviation enthusiasts. 

Established in 1953, the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) has more than 200,000 members and nearly 1,000 chapters globally. As a non-profit organisation, it is committed to growing aviation through participation and education. 

The EAA recently unveiled a 2,800 sq metre Education Center at its Wisconsin headquarters, designed to further develop aviation education and training.

The $6.2m project comprises the Pilot Proficiency Center, which is home to flight simulators; the Young Education Center, which provides youths, parents and teachers with access to interactive and project-based activities to inspire the next generation of aviators; and the EAA Conference Center events space.

The EAA tasked Arrow AV Group with designing the AV system for its Education Center. The integrator wanted to capitalise on system flexibility to allow the Education Center to be used for private corporate events. Most importantly, Arrow AV Group had to deliver a fully functioning system within six months – ahead of the world’s largest air show, AirVenture.

Shaun McClure, systems engineer at Arrow AV Group, says: “The EAA came to us with a short-timeline request to outfit its new educational facility with a full state-of-the-art audio and video system.

“Our initial design included all AV-over-IP components to ensure future compatibility and ease of infrastructure installation. After approval of the project, however, we learned that the manufacturer that we had designed the project with could not meet the project timelines.

“So we reached out to our contacts at Visionary and they were able to help us redesign the system with available components without otherwise compromising our design.”

Arrow AV Group integrated 21 PacketAV DuetE-2 encoders and 21 PacketAV D4100 decoders across the video displays at EAA’s Education Center.

In the Youth Education Center, the PacketAV Matrix Series is distributing video to three Panasonic laser projectors, which facilitates presentations for large groups or in three smaller breakout rooms.

The PacketAV Matrix Series has been deployed in the Conference Center to enable simplified video connectivity in two small conference rooms and a larger events space. Broadcasting and video streaming is possible from any room in the new facility, including from the wind tunnel, to accommodate overflow viewing.

The new functionality allows the EAA to livestream demonstrations and lessons to classrooms and learning environments throughout the country.

“Visionary’s quick actions, along with our company’s ability to be nimble and change plans and direction quickly, allowed the project to come in on time and ‘wow’ the customer and the general public attending the air show,” says McClure. “We’re glad to see that something we designed will be used to educate future generations in aeronautics.”