The Advanced Data Transfer Equipment (ADTE) is the next generation of in flight data transfer systems. The ADTE can include such diverse features as a digital terrain system, digital moving maps, solid state video recording, network accessible solid state mass storage, high speed interfaces, and the recording of a wide range of digital and analog aircraft data. The ADTE comes in two configurations. The first consists of a single unit with a removable data cartridge. The second configuration has two units, a cockpit mounted receptacle and cartridge, and an avionics bay mounted data management unit which provides all aircraft interfaces. The ADTE can be customized to meet the needs of any systems integrator, and includes such interfaces as MIL-STD-1553, RS-422, fibre optic channels, Arinc-429, Ethernet, and DigiBus. The ADTE provides fast, secure, data transfer and recording capabilities to today's most modern aircraft.