Feature
Light in Flight: Optical Applications in Civilian Aviation
Optical technologies such as head-up displays, fiber sensors and quantum dots will help build 21st century airplanes, connect pilots to crucial information and ensure the structural health of aircraft.
Light and flight have gone together since the era of Greek mythology, when Icarus flew too close to the Sun, and the heat melted his wax-and-feather wings. Today, in the second century of mechanized human flight, the technologies of visible and infrared light are making aviation safer and more efficient.
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