Satair Signs Deal to Bring Laser Glare Protection Eyewear and Visors to More Pilots

Satair has signed a multi-million dollar distribution agreement with Metamaterial Technologies Inc. (MTI) and its optical filters division Lamda Guard of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada to bring MTI’s metaAIR laser glare protection eyewear and visors to all aviation and military markets.

The technology features a patented dielectric (non-metallic) optical metamaterial filter, which has been scientifically engineered to ensure that the pilots’ vision and interpretation of the surrounding environment is not disturbed during critical phases of flight.

Laser strikes on aircraft and helicopters have risen over the years and laser pointers are increasing in power and decreasing in price. Lasers can distract and even harm pilots during critical phases of flight and can cause temporary visual impairment. Over 6750 laser incidents were recorded in the USA in 2017 according to the Federal Aviation Administration. In 2016 there were over 1750 laser incidents reported to the UK Civil Aviation Authority and Transport Canada Civil Aviation.

George Palikaras, MTI Founder and CEO, said, “We have worked closely with Satair since signing our initial MoU in June 2017 and which has led to today’s agreement for our eyewear, and visor products. We are very pleased to have Satair as our exclusive distributor. Through our partnership with Satair we will introduce our products to not just the commercial aviation market originally envisaged, but to service the growing needs of a much wider market to offer a solution to the increasing threats of laser strikes in global fixed-wing and rotary-wing aviation, law enforcement and defence.”

Satair is moving this relationship to commercialisation and will deploy its global presence and extended distribution and parts support services to all commercial aviation and defence market segments with metaAIR eyewear and visors products.

Bart Reijnen, CEO of Satair, said, “This deal is very unique in the sense that through a combined Airbus effort we have brought a start-up company to production maturity. We have utilised cross functional resources internally in Airbus to bring MTI to this stage. Departments such as Start-up-2-Partner within Corporate Innovation, Airbus Aircraft Security, Airbus Defence and Space and Satair have all taken responsibility as project sponsors. The result is the signature of today’s distribution agreement”.

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