History

Pioneering Products

Safe Flight Instrument Corporation was organized in 1946 to develop new ideas for aircraft instrumentation, and has become the leader in the field of aircraft lift instrumentation. For over seventy years, Safe Flight has remained dedicated to the production of aviation performance and safety equipment. While continuing to specialize in lift instrumentation, the firm has constantly expanded its product line, which has evolved from simple, switch-type stall warning systems for light aircraft to sophisticated speed command, autothrottle, stall warning, wind shear warning, and angle of attack systems for today’s airline and heavy aircraft. The company has recently entered the helicopter sector with a Powerline Detector and an Exceedance Warning System uniquely using tactile warning.

Safe Flight now designs, develops, and produces a variety of equipment to improve the performance and safety of all types of fixed wing aircraft, helicopter, general aviation, corporate, commercial, and military. Research and development continue on many instrumentation concepts, which will find their place in tomorrow’s aircraft.

The firm’s principal products include Stall Warning Systems, Angle of Attack Systems, Speed Control Systems, SCAT (Speed Command of Attitude and Thrust) Systems, AutoPower® (automatic throttle systems), airborne Wind Shear Warning Systems, and N1 Computer Systems. These systems are available and FAA-certified on nearly every type of aircraft. Most aircraft manufacturers offer Safe Flight systems as standard or optional equipment.

Equipment in each product category continues to be manufactured and delivered in significant quantities today. Safe Flight now counts among its customers the majority of the world’s aircraft manufacturers, more than 50 airlines, hundreds of corporate jet aircraft operators, and all the U.S. Armed Services.

Inventions

Safe Flight has pioneered:

  • Stall Warning
  • Angle of Attack indication and Coefficient-of-Lift (CL) displays
  • Landing and approach indicators showing SLOW/FAST/ON-SPEED conditions and/or trends
  • Takeoff and go-around computers using Angle of Attack-based pitch (attitude) commands
  • Automatic throttle systems utilizing Angle of Attack/Coefficient-of-Lift guidance
  • Airborne wind shear warning computers
  • Wind shear recovery guidance computation and display using Angle of Attack based pitch (attitude) commands
  • Airplane safe takeoff rotation computation and display, to safeguard the aircraft if wind shear is encountered during takeoff roll
  • Digital stall warning to the VS1g standard decreasing field length requirements and increasing aircraft payload and range
  • Powerline Detection

Safe Flight’s unexpired U.S. patents include basic and controlling patents for wind shear detection, alerting, and recovery guidance. Wind shear detection and warning computation is based on downdraft drift angle plus horizontal wind acceleration. This technology is patented in the USA, the UK, France, Germany, Canada, and Japan.