April 26, 2020
A company specializing in aviation safety equipment – including control-column shakers, angle of attack warning units and other systems – is utilizing its engineering expertise to help respond to the scarcity of ventilators used to combat COVID-19.
Safe Flight Instrument Corp. of White Plains, NY, recently developed and manufactured a 3D-printed, four-way ventilator splitter, which assists the breathing of up to four patients.
The company’s production, quality assurance, supply chain and engineer groups teamed up to design the Quad/Vent Splitter, a potentially life-saving device. Within two weeks, prototypes were successfully evaluated by two independent hospitals.
Safe Flight is awaiting emergency use authorization approval. Once approval is granted, the company will deliver splitters to the hospitals that participated in trials and will make the design available under license to broaden the production capabilities to include any company with 3D-printing capabilities.
“Having both the technical ability and support from our company made me feel an obligation to contribute in any way I could,” said Michael Lambton, the Safe Flight mechanical design engineer who discussed the ventilator scarcity with a physician relative. “The company’s ability to reconfigure its people and processes to tackle this dynamic problem has been nothing short of inspiring.”
International Business Aviation Council Ltd.