Technobis Fibre Technologies (TFT) and National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR, Netherland) made a first test flight with the Deminsys optical fibre measurement system using the NLR test aircraft on October 24th 2008. This flight was a first step in the further development of the current system in order to make it suitable for operation on board aircraft and advance it from TRL3 towards TRL5, a functional model for aerospace applications.

Working closely with the NLR experts, a number of parameters measured by Deminsys were selected for monitoring during the flight and compared to the conventionally installed electrical strain gauges at the existing measuring points in this test aircraft. These parameters were cabin air pressure, aircraft skin temperature and strain in the wing connection beam. Deminsys uses the advanced Fibre Bragg Grating technology to measure these parameters.

The flight schedule involved take-off, a climb to 15,000 FT and a number of manoeuvres. The tests were completed after about half an hour and resulted in a large set of test data. TFT will now analyse the Deminsys parameters compare them to the signals from the conventional systems.

However, the main goal has already been reached: the system operated without any problems during this test flight and therefore proved itself to be at TRL5 level for aerospace applications.