The military/aerospace platform operational environment challenges the creativity of fiber optic module packaging engineers as they endeavor to develop and mature new active and passive singlemode fiber optic and photonic components for next generation avionics networking applications. Low sales and manufacturing volumes inherent to avionics combined with lack of standard interface specifications for current and next generation fiber optic local area network architectures and subsystems makes it difficult for avionics suppliers to justify upfront research and development (R&D) investment in advanced fiber optics and photonics packaging technology.