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(upbeat music)

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In the highly corrosive areas
we see return on investment

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as quickly as two years from
a standard metal structure.

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And that's just purely on
a maintenance saving side.

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If you're talking about loss
of life due to an impact,

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kind of hard to put a number
on that one so, priceless.

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As part of the Air Force SBIR
that we received back in 2006,

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we developed a composite
tower structure that performs

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a lot better than the
previous metal structures

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that house NAVAIDs for various aircraft.

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A majority of them are currently
in high corrosive areas

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in the PACAF region.

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We have ILS towers made
of our composite materials

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in Kadena, Andersen, Kunsan,

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and they've been performing
very well since 2006.

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The technology is kind of
twofold, it has increased safety

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under frangibility, it means breaks apart

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if it's ever impacted at high
speed by any wayward aircraft

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as well as reducing maintenance
across the entire Air Force.

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Our office does corrosion control

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on shelters, radomes and towers

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for all agencies within the Air Force.

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There's a lot of time spent
having to treat the corrosion

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and repaint it and
especially in coastal areas

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where we have to visit
them every couple of years.

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It's expensive composite
materials reduces those costs

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for hoping to cut down
the maintenance cycles

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to every, seven, eight years.

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In 16 years, the glide slope

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that we've had installed in Guam,

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we've only had to do a maintenance
action one time on that.

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What drove our requirement
was to reduce maintenance

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due to corrosion control,

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and at the same time,
come up with a product

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that would meet the
frangibility requirements.

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The FAA's frangibility guidebook
that they just published

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does mention the Air Force SBIR program,

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and we went through a lot of work.

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People from the Air Force
advanced composites lab

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we also had the Air Force
civil engineering command

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working with us to
develop the new standards

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along with select engineering services.

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We came up with the testing
what needed to be done

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we compared tests from the FAA,

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the Air Force Engineering,
Technical letters,

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and also the ICAO standards or
the international standards.

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And we have developed improved tests

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that are going to set the
damage criterias for aircraft

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so that when the aircraft
hit one of these towers

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while they're flying,

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they will be able to fly right through it.

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The funding support

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from the Commercialization
Readiness Program

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has really helped SES
as well as the Air Force

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advance it's regulations.

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Without the funding,
that additional research

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into these impact testing facilities

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would not have been possible.

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The Air Force SBIR program is essential

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for our success not only as a company,

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but as problem solvers.

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Without that funding stream,

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without that commitment
to advancing technologies

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that the Air Force SBIR program
has these types of efforts

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would not be something
that we could realize

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as a small business.