For the Second
Year in a Row.:.

Michigan's #1
Standards for Excellence
Dealer

WI! a

Stk# V821955

Chrome wheels,
leather lumbar pkg., heated

seats, safety & security pkg.

Additional $500
Lease Renewal
Incentive for
current Cadillac
Smart Lea.

Stk# V260107

Leather seats, chrome
wheels, leather interior.

Additional $500
Lease Renewal
Incentive for
current Cadillac
Smart

Stk# V105960

Leather seats, heated seats,
memory seats, theft
deterrent system & cast
aluminum wheels.

GMAC Smartlease 36 months, 1st pymt., ref. sec. dep. of $600 or less, down pyme. as shown above, new plates or transfer fee, admin-
istration fee due on delivery. State & Lux. tax additional. Mileage limitation of 36,000 miles. 15o/mile excess charge over limitation. Lessee
has option to purchase at lease end for pre determained price. To get total pymt., multiply pymt. by no. of months.

RINKE CADILLAC

If traveling west on 1-696, exit Hoover, follow Service Drive to RINKE.
If traveling east on 1-696, exit Van Dyke; take to second bridge past Van Dyke over expressway to RINKE.

Ready For Take Off

After a technological turnaround, Israeli military
supplier Rada has penetrated the civilian market.

JENNIFER FRIEDLIN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

N

o one knows better than
Haim Nissenson that ne-
cessity is the mother of in-
vention.
In 1990, Rada Electronic In-
dustries, Ltd., then a small man-
ufacturer of airborne test
equipment for the Israeli military,
was forced to face a difficult real-
ity. With most upgrades of Israeli
planes already completed and few
new orders on the horizon, the
company would have to do one of
two things: close down or impro-
vise.
"In 1990 we had $16 million in
sales and we were looking at $4
million per year in the coming
years," said Mr. Nissenson, CEO
of the Herzliya-based company.
`This was indefensible, and so we
had to decide to either shut down
our industrial activities or find a
new activity."
Aware that Rada would have
to develop an innovative product
in order to expand into the inter-
national marketplace, the com-
pany decided to simultaneously
upgrade its technologies and find
more widespread applications for
its electronic equipment, which
was then used to produce non-
computerized test equipment for
cockpit operating systems and ar-
mament activation switches.
Taking a proposal made from
an outsider and $20 million in in-
vestments garnered through the
company's 1985 initial public of-
fering on the NASDAQ exchange,
Rada's team of engineers began
developing two original products.
The plan worked. The compa-
ny, which has grown from 40 em-
ployees in 1980 to 180 employees
today, now manufactures com-
puter-based diagnostic test equip-
ment for commercial carriers and
air combat evaluation systems for
the military market.
Sales of Rada's Commercial
Aviation Tests stations (CATs)
and Autonomous Combat-ma-
neuvers Evaluation system (ACE)
to such prestigious customers as
British Airways, United Airlines,
U.S. Air, Olympic, China United
and Royal Netherlands Air Force
totaled $22.2 million in the first
three quarters of 1996.
At RADA'S manufacturing fa-
cility located atop the rolling hills
of the financially depressed north-
ern city of Beit She'an, line work-
ers pair, twist, cut and install
hundreds of wires onto small met-
al panels that are assembled into
CATs. The CATs, a stand-alone
system, can then check an air-
plane's numerous control systems,
which operate via electronic cards

that are sorted and stored in hun-
dreds of removable boxes in the
airplane's cockpit.
If a pilot detects a problem with
a plane's heating system, upon
landing he removes the box con-
taining the electronic control cards
that run the climate control sys-
tem, replaces the box with a func-
tioning one and sends the faulty
one to a testing station. A tech-
nician then connects the heating-
system-operating box to the CATs
machine and within minutes the
computer will diagnose the prob-
lem.
Given today's advanced elec-
tronics, all this might not seem re-
motely remarkable. But, in fact,
most airline carriers still employ
hundreds of technicians to detect
defects; a process that involves
much more manpower than a
computerized testing system,
takes weeks to complete and costs
the airline thousands of dollars in
lost operating time.
`The manual that specifies how
a technician has to test each box
is as thick as the Bible," said Mr.
Nissenson, adding that people
must work for 10 hours to do what
the CATs machine can do in one.
"You have to know line-by-line
how to implement the 3,000 dif-
ferent testing measurements.
"And at the end of the process,
you might find that the unit was
not faulty."
The company's other product,
ACE, allows air forces to monitor
sortie missions and replay them
in 3-D through a standard com-
puter hook-up that also enables
the reconstruction of display files
from different squadrons.
Using an algorithm Rada de-
veloped, the system's main selling
point is that it can calculate a
plane's exact location in the air.
Unlike most military recording
systems that are installed in the
weaponry compartment and,
therefore, can only record train-
ing exercises, the ACE system
goes under the wing of the air-
plane, allowing pilots to tape and
debrief actual missions.
To date, Rada has sold the ACE
system to the Israeli, Chilean and
Dutch air forces for undisclosed
sums.
Rada's successful transition
from military-goods producer to
innovative maker of technologies
for the civilian markets stands out
all the more when compared to
the far-reaching failures of other
Israeli military-goods manufac-
turers, most of whom, despite sig-
nificant efforts, could not realize

TAKE OFF page 72

