I recently returned from the 2008 Aviation Industry Expo in Dallas Texas.  Phil Bedard, Darren Billings and I manned booth 331 March 18 – 20, 2008. This annual event is directed toward aviation line services and along with the hundreds of exhibitors, there were training seminars, a “Maintenance Summit”, numerous speakers, a maintenance skills competition, and a golf tournament that raised funds for AMT scholarships. Interestingly, of the equipment we brought to exhibit, the new 4mm Itools and SnakeEye III  captured the most excitement;  the 4mm Itool mainly for small GT inspection and the SnakeEyeIII for just about everything else including airframes, trucks, ground support equipment maintenance.  These are two great scopes to help meet inspection needs for two different markets and two different price points. The SnakeEye III starts at about $3500.  These units are bright yellow, water proof, can handle temps between 14̊ F and140̊ F and weigh less than 2 lbs! It is a really easy unit to use. Needless to say lots of people were interested in buying them. Aqua, the manufacturer of SnakeEye IIIs and IIs, said they have sold more than 10,000 units. The other scope we brought was the recently released IT Concepts 4mm. It looks exactly like their 6mm and 8mm units, but can enter even smaller diameters than their current models. IT Concepts is quickly making a name for itself as a provider of videoscopes with superb image quality, ease of use, and portability. This one has amazing resolution: 77K pixels and video integration for optimal light capture. It was so new that there weren’t any brochures or press releases out on it at the time we took it to the tradeshow.  We were excited to be able to get one of the first ones and to show it to the AS3 crowd. The 4mm is going to make the competition very uncomfortable – it does it all – and does it for a lot less money than any comparable unit.  Even though this unit was just unveiled the beginning of March there are several standing orders for it as IT Concepts ramps up production. Just about everyone that saw these units were interested in buying one or the other. It always feels good to bring new products that do so well at the shows