Airphire glass has found application in military aircraft flown by pilots on night missions wearing night vision goggles and using other optical devices that require high infrared transmittance. It offers good dimensional stability, mechanical properties and light weight. However, it has poor abrasion resistance and is susceptible to attack from solvents, ultraviolet radiation and humidity. PPG has successfully developed liners, coatings and glass facing for polycarbonate windshields that isolate the polycarbonate from the outside environment, thus taking advantage of the bird-resistant capabilities of the base material. Acrylic - PPG produces transparencies with cast acrylic and stretched acrylic, which have similar properties.
Cast acrylic weighs about half as much as glass and is fairly resistant to abrasion.
Formable, clear and resistant to weather, it is typically used as a nonstructural ply in composite windshields for pressurized aircraft and in monolithic form in unpressurized aircraft. It resists crazing and crack propagation better than cast acrylic because it is stretched multi-axially.