Go Inside FlightSafety’s Glass Manufacturing Facility An Inside Look at FlightSafety International’s Cutting-Edge Mirror Displays Inside a specialized facility in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, flat sheets of glass are transformed into the large, ultra-precise, and realistic mirror displays found inside FlightSafety International’s (FSI) Full Flight Simulators (FFS). Qualified to the highest certification level of FAA 14 CFR Part 60 Level D, the displays known as CrewView, fill the entire aircraft window, playing a critical role in how the world’s top pilots train to be ready for anything. FSI acquired CrewView from Glass Mountain Optics in 2009 and brought operations to Broken Arrow in 2022. A team of highly skilled specialists and technicians work at the plant, supported by FSI’s global engineering, manufacturing, and training teams. Many of the state-of-the-art processes in use today were developed and refined over decades by specialists like Bart Sloane, who has been in the industrial and simulation optics business for 40 years. Sloane helped design the innovative ovens and polishing machines still in use today. “I believe that our CrewView technology is made special because of the processes we have developed, refined, improved, adapted, and even abandoned over the last four decades,” said Sloane. “The result is that we have a reliable, predictable, repeatable, and flexible method for manufacturing some of the largest mirrors in the market using glass as the primary raw material.” The proprietary manufacturing process of FSI’s advanced glass mirror displays begins with flat panels of glass passing through a series of highly specialized steps. After being heated and shaped into a perfect spherical shape, glass is cut, ground, and polished. Once pieces have passed a microscopic inspection, each piece is trimmed to its final shape with precision waterjet technology — allowing multiple panels to fit together so seamlessly that their joints virtually disappear in use. Glass pieces then receive multiple protective coating layers to provide maximum reflective uniformity across the entire surface of the mirror as well as excellent durability. The result is unmatched, clear, consistent, and realistic visuals. In addition to large spherical glass mirrors for fixed-wing out-the-window displays, FSI also produces smaller curved mirrors for helicopter chin windows and is continually innovating to improve the CrewView line of displays, including developing light weight rigid mirrors. In addition to engineering and manufacturing cutting-edge glass solutions, FSI has a second operation in Broken Arrow, which develops simulators and employs more than 640 people. Frasca, a FlightSafety International company that has been a global leader in flight simulation since 1958, operates an additional U.S. manufacturing plant in Urbana, Illinois, employing 145 people.
