Fly-by-light aircraft system cable plants

A program was completed with joint industry and government funding to apply fiber optics to aircraft. The technology offers many potential benefits. Among them are increased electromagnetic interference immunity and the possibility of reduced weight, increased reliability, and enlarged capability by redesigning architectures to use the bandwidth of fiber optics. Those benefits can be realized if fiber optics meets the requirements of aircraft networks. The Fly-by-Light Advanced System Hardware (FLASH) program expanded on previous cable plant efforts by building components based on a cohesive aircraft cable plant system concept. The concept was rooted in not just optical performance, but also cost, manufacturing installation, maintenance, and support. To do that, the FLASH team evaluated requirements, delineated use conditions, designed, built, and tested fiber optic components, for transport aircraft, tactical aircraft, and helicopters. In addition, the FLASH team developed installation and test methods, and support equipment for aircraft optical cable plants. The results of the effort are reported here.