Courses

Free during development — limited-time access. Preview the full course free without enrollment while it is being developed. The end date is to be determined. Lessons 00–04 remain free public chapters for readers arriving from articles, including after the wider course moves to paid access. Sign in and enroll free to track your progress and record quiz completion.

Help improve the course. Use the course Forum to ask questions, discuss fixed-wing and helicopter display qualification, and suggest corrections. This is a development edition; lessons may be revised as the course grows.

Learn to plan and evaluate DO-160 environmental qualification for aircraft display components, complete display systems, and installed displays. Work through all 23 environmental sections, 11 original graphs and explanatory diagrams, 21 editable lesson tables, display-specific acceptance criteria, contractual requirements, and a practical qualification-plan capstone. All 25 course items are currently enabled for public preview. Scope: the display, its electronics, optics, enclosure, power and interfaces; remote sensors and radar equipment are outside this course. Development edition A-P02 — educational material, not a substitute for the applicable standards or an approved qualification plan.

Cover photograph: Airbus A350 cockpit by Joao Carlos Medau, CC BY 2.0. Displayed at reduced size; the course card may crop the view.

Optical Bonding of LCD Displays

Optical Bonding Displays with Platinum Cured Silicones

A detailed engineering course connecting LCD operation and polarizers to functional front covers, compliant silicone bonds, controlled manufacturing and verified display performance. Learn how platinum catalyst, crosslinkers, adhesion promoters, primers and retarders affect the bonding system.

Watch the 2:42 introduction with Diggy Breiling, then preview Chapters 1 and 2 free. Invitation enrollment provides access to Chapters 3–17 and the engineering resources. No prior silicone chemistry is required.

Six course sections

1. Foundations — Introduction and Chapters 1–2: why silicone; LCD image formation, color filtering, PVA/TAC polarizers, optical films and emissive-display comparisons.
2. Core Engineering — Chapters 3–7: silicone chemistry; front covers, touch, ITO heaters, shields, mesh, masks and NVIS optical paths; optical performance; bond mechanics; material selection.
3. Manufacturing — Chapters 8–10: surface adhesion and preparation lifetime; cure timing; humidity and temperature control; level, untwisted, thickness-controlled assembly.
4. System Integration — Chapters 11–12: extended-temperature operation, installation loads, adhesive/cohesive failure analysis and complete-assembly verification.
5. Silicone Enhancements — Chapters 13–17: catalyst, crosslinkers, adhesion promoters and primers, retarders and the design capstone. Includes product-specific primer windows and perimeter adhesion.
6. Engineering Resources: calculations, exercises, references and glossary.

Chapter 2 provides the LCD foundation. Chapter 4 · front covers, touch panels, heaters and shields develops the functional cover; detailed chapters provide linked explanations of optics, forces, surface preparation and qualification.

Designed for display, optical, mechanical, process and quality engineers. Estimated study time: approximately 12 hours including exercises and reference reading, pending learner-pilot validation. Includes worked calculations, self-checks and a design capstone.

Related FPD.DEV courses

• Display Optical Testing: Contrast, Reflection & Ambient Performance — Measurement geometry, contrast, reflection, uncertainty and laboratory reporting.
• Optical Oracle™: Optical Enhancements & Sunlight Viewability — Optical enhancement comparisons and sunlight-viewability modeling.
• DO-160 Display Qualification: Components, Systems and Installation — Environmental qualification planning for the complete installed display.

These are separate learning paths; follow each course’s current access and development-edition notices. They do not establish product qualification.

Suggested future specialist courses

Display Polarization and Backlight Engineering; Functional Cover Design: Touch, Heaters and EMI; and Silicone Adhesion Process Qualification. These are proposed topics, not available course offerings.

Explore NVIS display engineering through 24 chapters on spectra, standards, optical stacks, reflection control, dimming and measurement.

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Use Back and Forward beneath the video to browse reading pages without interrupting playback. Follow along with the Chapter PDF, Glossary and references.

Discussion

General NVIS questions and feedback · Learner discussion

Chapters

1. Welcome & Introduction
2. The display and the two viewing tasks
3. From MIL-L-85762A to MIL-STD-3009
4. Types classes colors and the requirement boundary
5. Night-Vision Technologies: What Each System Sees
6. How image-intensifier goggles work
7. The display in the shared lighting environment
8. Reading spectra and keeping units consistent
9. Measuring NVIS weighted radiance
10. LEDs and the origin of their spectra
11. RGB versus white backlights
12. The LCD stack and the spectral budget
13. Follow the light from backlight to viewer
14. Absorbing interference and hybrid filters
15. Filters in front of and behind the display
16. Filters over LEDs and backlight rails
17. Leakage and equal-output comparisons
18. Dimming ratio and low-level control
19. Daylight contrast and the brightness budget
20. Modes transitions and fault behavior
21. A practical measurement and verification program
22. Product cases and architecture selection
23. Workbook and facilitated laboratories
24. Assessment and answer key

Development edition. Videos are available for Chapters 1–3; later chapters currently provide reading pages and follow-along PDFs.

Under development — free early access. This course is open for learning and feedback while content is being developed. Enrollment is currently free and may remain free until formal release. A release date and future price have not yet been set.

• Register and join the course: learners enrolled before paid pricing starts retain access without an additional course fee for at least three months from that effective date.
• Complete the course and keep access: completed learners will not lose access because paid pricing is introduced, including early enrollees who complete during their protected access period.

Use the same account to record enrollment and completion. Future pricing and its effective date will be announced here before they take effect. There is no scheduled access cutoff at present. Discuss questions, corrections and suggestions in the course forum.

For display engineers and test technicians: contrast, luminance/color uniformity, viewing-angle tests in 15° increments, BRDF, specular and diffuse reflection, and combined ambient measurements. Includes manual setups, Pixel Perfect patterns, measurement lights, integrating spheres, goniometers, equipment images and links, specification comparisons, laboratory exercises and a 12-question knowledge check.

Estimated learning and laboratory time: 9 hours 30 minutes. A-P06 — Public development edition; final release pending.