Flight Safety Technologies Inc. Chairman and CEO, Sam Kovnat, issued the following statement on July 2, 2007.
FST recently returned from the Paris Air Show, which is the world's premiere showcase for aviation. The FST booth, which was partially sponsored by the State of Connecticut, was visited by many representatives of the international aerospace customer community. Highlights of the show for FST included meetings with US FAA Administrator, Marion Blakey, and Associate Administrator Nick Sabatini as well as key executives from Dubai, India and various other Government and Industry representatives. FST believes that these discussions reflect a worldwide upsurge of interest in technologies that address capacity constraints due to wake turbulence, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) collision avoidance, and terrorist missile threat countermeasures.
FST is developing a system called AWSM (Aircraft Wake Safety Management) to increase airport capacity by safely reducing current spacing requirements between aircraft and is currently preparing a proposal to the FAA for a government-industry collaboration to demonstrate and perform a safety assessment for AWSM. FST is encouraged by the recent congressional House Science Committee recommendation to authorize approximately $48 million for FAA Wake Turbulence related R&D over the next four years (HR Bill 2698, subcommittee markup dated June 14, 2007). While it believes this recommendation signals an increasing focus on wake turbulence and its impact on the air transportation system, there can be no assurance nor any implied expectation that any such funding ultimately will be approved and signed into law or, if so, that FST will receive any funds from this source or any other source. The Bill must go through Senate-House conference action as well as the appropriation process and then be signed by the President.
With regard to FST's Unicorn collision avoidance technology, FST was pleased to be selected by the US Air Force for a Small Business Innovative Research award ($100,000) to study the potential for the use of Unicorn with UAV applications.
FST also is continuing to pursue the TIICM technology for protection of airliners against certain shoulder-fired terrorist missile threats. FST expects the US Air Force to begin testing this technology using actual missiles at a Government facility starting later this year, although there can be no assurance as to whether or when such testing will commence.
