Michelin supports light aviation

WHAT PROMPTED MICHELIN TO BECOME INVOLVED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THIS APP?

Rodolphe Brachi: The KRISTAL.air app is designed to help pilots and meets Michelin Aviation's ambitions in terms of connected mobility, safety and greater customer intimacy.  It's also in line with the Group's "All Sustainable" approach, since by recording flights and displaying them in 3D, pilots can now analyze and optimize their flights, thereby improving the quality of their landings and reducing their environmental impact through lower fuel consumption, CO2 emissions.

HOW EXACTLY DID MICHELIN SUPPORT THE DEVELOPMENT OF THIS APPLICATION?

RB: Michelin was working with KRISTAL.aero from the very beginning. While at the World Aerobatic Championship, we had the idea of tracking aircraft trajectories to better visualize their performance. We followed through on the idea and decided that KRISTAL.aero would handle the development, while Michelin would provide resources in various fields, including IT security, digital technology, information services and communication.

Michelin's Key Account Manager coordinated the KRISTAL.aero and Michelin teams. All this happened in a climate of trust and transparency, which enabled us to create and launch an application in under 18 months.

CAN YOU SUM UP THE MAIN ADVANTAGES OF THIS APP?

RB: KRISTAL.air enables us to be in contact with the pilots who use our "General Aviation" tires, through 4 domains, namely the flying community, flight data, challenges and experiences. This application allows the flying community to access all our technical documentation in digital form, as well as benefitting from our recommendations and advice. Flight data, meanwhile, is now recorded in real time and displayed in 3D. The "kiss landing*" and "smooth breaking**" challenges help to improve the quality of landings. Last but not least, pilots can share their experiences with KRISTAL.air, whether about flight paths, points of interest or any other comments. The application is easy to use and designed to be scalable, so we plan to add new options based on users' feedback. It's available in French and in English and can now be downloaded for free on IOS, here. An Android version, together with a web browser version, will be available later.

^{* The KISS LANDING challenge will assess the quality of landings based on two factors, namely the variation in altitude provided by the barometer and the magnitude of the impact on the ground via the accelerometer.}

^{** The SMOOTH BREAKING challenge will assess the smoothness of braking based on two factors, deceleration as measured by the accelerometer and braking distance using GPS.}