October 6, 2008 (Orlando, Fla.) - SCHOTT (booth 3916) unveiled today at the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) conference several of its latest innovations, which will improve air travel safety, comfort, and convenience both on the ground and in the air. The diverse range of new products include energy-efficient LED personal reading lamps, LED solutions for general cabin lighting, glass to metal hermetic seals for aircraft proximity sensors, LightPoints™ featuring floating LEDs, and new datacom applications for fiber optics on the next generation of airliners and business jets.
“For both new planes and older aircraft being fitted out with new capabilities, the various SCHOTT solutions offer higher technology, capacity and reliability to standard aircraft functions,” said Gerhard Zwickel, Manager of Aviation at SCHOTT. “The new SCHOTT products also offer savings in energy use, weight and maintenance costs, while providing superior functionality.”
Because the new SCHOTT products use glass, instead of polymers and other alternate materials, they offer aircraft designers and operators technology options that are both safer and longer lasting. Glass-based systems, including glass-to-metal seals, resist corrosion, extreme temperatures, and have longer service lives than plastic. Fiber optics, which are lighter than copper wires, do not require insulation and pose no risk of sparking. SCHOTT’s fiber optics carry more information and weigh much less, an important consideration in aircraft design and renovation.
“Now, with aircraft in service for 20 years or more, their components and subsystems need to have service lives of comparable length,” said Zwickel. “SCHOTT glass technologies offer aircraft operators long-term savings in both maintenance and operational costs.”
Exhibiting at the NBAA marks the introduction of SCHOTT’s market oriented strategy aimed at the aviation sector. SCHOTT has 13 manufacturing operations across North America and is part of the globally present SCHOTT group, which operates in 41 countries worldwide.
“Many customers in the aviation arena are already familiar with SCHOTT,” said Nina Berlin, who coordinates SCHOTT’s aviation marketing effort worldwide. “But chances are they did not know the vast depth of SCHOTT’s expertise and knowledge. The company is a solutions provider to the aviation industry.”
About SCHOTT
SCHOTT is a technology-driven, international group that sees its core purpose as the lasting improvement of living and working conditions through special materials and high-tech solutions. Its main areas of focus are defense, household appliance industry, pharmaceutical packaging, optics and opto-electronics, information technology, consumer electronics, lighting, automotive engineering and solar energy.
SCHOTT has a presence in close proximity to its customers through highly efficient production and sales companies in all of its major markets. The company has approximately 17,000 employees producing worldwide sales of approximately $3 billion. In North America, SCHOTT’s holding company SCHOTT Corporation and its subsidiary SCHOTT North America, Inc. and their affiliates employ about 2,500 people in 13 production operations with four sales offices.
