Air traffic controllers and aviators flying state-of-the-art military aircraft such as U.S. Army Apache helicopters and U.S. Navy F/A 18 strike fighters depend on high performance displays to track targets and prevent collisions. Planar Flat Candle, a subsidiary of Planar Systems Inc. (Beaverton, OR), and supplier of qualified display modules for military cockpits, uses flat fluorescent backlighting to make these displays readable.
Planar Flat Candle's lamps need to last 40,000 hours in mission critical applications. The company requires components, such as the wire filaments, to be just as reliable. Numerous wire suppliers did not want to supply Planar Flat Candle with test samples or did not meet the company's standards. According to John Blessing, manufacturing manager at Planar Flat Candle, "Testing was essential because we had to find wire that could stand up under high voltage."