British aerospace manufacturing company Cobham has sold S-Tec and Chelton Flight Systems to some of the same people it bought them from, saying the businesses no longer fit its strategy.
The new owner of S-Tec and Chelton Flight Systems is a name you probably have never heard. Genesys Aerosystems, newly formed by original Chelton co-founders Gordon Pratt and Rick Price along with former Cobham Avionics executive Roger Smith and director of finance Tammy Crawford, now employs about 140 former Cobham workers, most of them in Mineral Wells, Texas, where S-Tec is based.
Genesys Aerosystems will continue to produce Chelton’s synthetic-vision flight display systems and GPS/WAAS navigation systems as well as S-Tec’s autopilot systems for airplanes, and more recently, helicopters.
Pratt and Price formed Chelton Flight Systems in 1997, originally named Sierra Flight Systems, in Boise, Idaho. Cobham bought the business in 2001. The company produced the first FAA-certified synthetic-vision EFIS and GPS/WAAS navigator. S-Tec, founded in 1978, has shipped more than 40,000 autopilots over the years. It was sold to Cobham in 2007.
Smith, who will serve as president and general manager of Genesys Aerosystems, said the company will remain in Mineral Wells as its seeks to reinvigorate its brands. “The name is changing,” he said, “but the people and our commitment to our vision are not.”
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