London, 8^th June 2010

CTL is a member of the Electronics Systems NTC and we will be exhibiting at its Conference in London on 8^th June.

The conference theme will be: “Complex Electronics Systems in Aerospace, Defence and Security”

The event will address both the challenges of living with systems complexity and approaches that the UK R&D community can adopt to be successful for both UKand global customers.  Speakers will include Jonathan Lyle, Head of Programmes, DSTL; Prof. Adam Ogilvie-Smith, Office for Security and Counter Terrorism, Home Office; and Prof. John McDermid, Technical Director, SSEI.

Copernicus Technology Ltd took the root of its name from the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), who has just been back in the news after an absence of 5 centuries!  Copernicus was a Canon at Frombork Cathedral in Poland.   He was originally buried in an unmarked grave because the Church believed his theories were heretical; however, last weekend, he was reburied and honoured in a ceremony at Frombork Cathedral. 

He is most famous for his advances in astronomy.  In his treatise:  'On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres,' he asserted that the earth revolved around the sun – the ‘Copernican System’ - contrary to the medieval belief that the earth was the centre of the universe.  His revolutionary model was based on complex mathematical calculations and his naked-eye observations of the heavens because the telescope had not yet been invented.  The treatise was viewed with suspicion by the Church, and not published until the year he died; in fact, he only received a copy of the printed book on the day he died. It was to become the cornerstone for future generations of scientists including Kepler and Galileo, but one of its strongest advocates, Italian priest Giordano Bruno, was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600.

The Vatican only removed Copernicus' treatise from its list of banned books in 1835 and, barely 20 years ago, the Vatican rehabilitated Galileo Galilei, who was persecuted by the Inquisition for further developing Copernican theory.

DNA tests in 2005 had identified Copernicus’ remains by comparing them with hair found in his books kept at theUniversity of Uppsalain Sweden.  His remains were carried in procession, with several stops on the way, at places where he had lived and worked in northern Poland, in a tour which began at Olsztynin February.

Finally, on Saturday 22^nd May 2010, he was buried under a black granite tombstone describing him as the creator of heliocentrism and decorated with a golden sun encircled by six of the planets.

CTL has been invited to present at the European Corporate Aviation Summit inLinköping,Sweden, at the beginning of September.  CTL will address the attendees on the subject of reducing maintenance costs through System Integrity and Intermittent Fault Detection solutions.

The Summitwill be held on 2^nd-3^rd September 2010 at theSwedishAirForceMuseum near Linköping, which is the heartland of the Swedish aviation industry.

And MTBF Doubled

And a Further $1M a Year Maintenance Savings

Ncompass test technology, and its unique Intermittent Fault Detection capability continues to rack up huge successes on a major project in theUS. It is being used to undertake intermittent fault detection testing of Modular Low Power Radio Frequency (MLPRF) assemblies (picture right) from the F16 fleet. This was a Line Replaceable Unit (LRU) with a major history of ‘No Fault Found’ problems, predominantly manifested as a significant number of ‘No Fault Found’ occurrences at Depth repair.

72% of the MLPRFs had been returned for repair between 2 to 6 times within the last 10 years; at the far extreme, 2 individual MLPRFs had been returned 17 times in the same 10 year period! The end result of this was that the MLPRF repair bay had accumulated 109 MLPRFs that were deemed "unrepairable".

The NCompass’ IFD capabilities were brought to bear and the situation soon began to change dramatically. To date, 69 of the 109 "unrepairable" MLPRFs have had the intermittent faults, which had been at the root cause of their No Fault Found problems, detected successfully. All 69 have since been repaired and returned to service: at $307k per LRU, this represents recovery of over $21M-worth of assets to date. Meanwhile, the remaining 40 "unrepairable" MLPRFs have also been tested and now await parts to enable the requisite repairs to take place.

The effects of this Ncompass test programme are such that the Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) statistic for the MLPRF have increased from 301 flying hours to 656 flying hours. These MTBF increases mean fewer repairs and so this alone is projected to enable additional maintenance costs savings, forecast at a further $1.1M, year on year.

All of this information, including a further case study (F16 Azimuth/Elev ribbon cable) was presented at the May 2010 US Airworthiness & Sustainment conference (formerly known as the 'Aging Aircraft' conference) in Texas.

Want to know more? Click on the major links above, for ‘Services’ or ‘Test Equipment’.