Avionics News May 2016 - 32

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Don Hamilton and Steve Scarlata of ALTO Aviation

lightest audio equipment available
for private aviation.
Avionics News spoke to ALTO
Aviation's founding partners - Don
Hamilton and Steve Scarlata - to
learn more about the company and
their lives outside the office.
DON HAMILTON

ile
of ALTO Aviation, wh
serves as president
ing, R&D.
eer
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Don Hamilton (left)
of
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sid
as vice pre
Steve Scarlata serves

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LTO Aviation is one of
the premier suppliers
of high-end cabin audio
systems for corporate aircraft.
The company offers a complete
line of loudspeakers, amplifiers,
subwoofers, surround systems,
passenger interface controls, and
page/chime systems, including
stand-alone systems that do not
require in-flight entertainment
or cabin management system
support. ALTO Aviation designs
and manufactures the smallest and
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avionics news

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may

2016

With...

You and Steve Scarlata
met at Bose. Can you tell
us how your company
evolved from there?
Steve and I were audio systems
engineers at Bose working on car
stereo systems. In my last few
years at Bose, my job was to find
non-car OEM programs that would
be customized and provide great
sound. One of the programs I
identified was with the Gulfstream
IV and V.
Did Bose already have its
aviation headset?
Yes, but as systems engineers,
there weren't many people who
could do the airplane cabin work, the
customizing in weird applications.
Back then, Bose was the only
company doing it in cars, and there
weren't a lot of people working
on it, even at Bose. The aviation
application, though, was a way for
Bose to get their name in front of
the people flying on these jets. For
example, if Apple had a jet, the
thinking was that seeing the Bose
system on the jet might lead to Apple
using Bose sound in the computers.

Bose was looking for large
growth opportunities in non-car
systems, but everything didn't fit
the mold. None of the specific
areas I identified made sense to
them, and that's when I decided
to leave and start ALTO.
It worked out well since the
first thing that happened is that
Bose contracted ALTO to build
the Gulfstream cabin systems.
When Bose decided to back away,
it left us with a void. We had
our contacts at Gulfstream who
then gave us another project to
do an amplifier. The people at
Gulfstream helped ALTO get into
the industry and helped create our
quality systems. We've been selling
standard equipment since the early
2000s. It's been 15 years now.
You've been able to
grow the company from
Gulfstream as your first
customer.
We went many years with just
one product. Once we had field
data to prove our quality, we
branched out to look at other
customers, and now we're the
OEM for Gulfstream, Falcon and
Embraer, from the 450 to the
Lineage. We do all of the audio
for Honeywell's Ovation system.
We're in Cessna, and we do
Sikorsky helicopters. We have one
speaker on the Airbus A380 as
part of our commercial program,
and we have more OEMs coming
in the future.
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News May 2016
