It looks like the simulation market now has three key suppliers of large area glass collimation mirrors for flight simulators: Esterline, Flight Safety and Display & Optical Technologies, Inc. (DOTI). (for an explanation of the benefits of collimation, see Flight Safety Shows Benefit of Collimated Display)
Flight Safety has been offering glass collimator optics for several years. They also recently purchased a company called Acugain Coatings, Inc. based in Salt Lake City, which apparently offers a very nice screen coating that is particularly uniform – a key requirement for large simulator screens.
Esterline, which was spun out of Barco to service the simulation and training market, announced they are now offering glass-based collimated display solution to complement their existing film-based collimated systems. The company claimed these new mirrors “come from Esterline” suggesting that the company makes them, but that may not be the case. But, they did acknowledge they are not sourced from Flight Safety or DOTI. They will be branded as Treality collimated displays, however.
This new capability was bolstered by a design win for them as well from CAE USA, which will use them in the U.S. Navy MH-60 Technical Refresh and Procurement of Simulators (TRPS) Program. The total program includes nineteen Treality solid mirror, collimated display (CD) systems that will be installed over a four-year period. Each display system includes support structures, light tightening enclosures, collimating optics, projectors, a projector control system, and an automatic alignment system.
Meanwhile DOTI announced that it is expanding its glass mirror production capability at is facility in Georgetown, Texas, increasing its total manufacturing area by 150%. The company is currently in the process of completing the installation of upgraded machinery and ovens to manufacture mirrors up to 11′ (3.35m) in radius with a 60º FOV. Its aim is to manufacture more than 100 large mirrors each year in response to customer requests.
The expansion will allow DOTI to increase its formed optics (precision slumped glass) size capability as well as the ability to grind and polish such optics and in the future, addressing the need for even larger mirrors, both curved and flat. – CC
