Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific advice on stock picks as well as questions on investment strategy and the economy. Every week, his comments and recommendations on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And each week, we offer you one of the highlights from these Q&A sessions. While we reserve our buy-hold-sell advice for Inner Circle members, these excerpts provide a great deal of information and analysis on stocks we’ve covered for members of Pat’s Inner Circle.

This week an Inner Circle member asked us about FLYHT Aerospace Solutions. This Canadian company supplies a number of products and services. But the two that have attracted the most attention in the past year are devices that collect and stream flight data. The mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in March 2014—and the recent crash of AirAsia flight QZ850—underlined the potential value of those devices. Pat looks into the company’s business and assesses its prospects for growth in a highly competitive market.

Q: Pat: I would appreciate having your thoughts on the following company: FLYHT Aerospace Solutions. Thank you.

A: FLYHT Aerospace Solutions (symbol FLY on Toronto; www.flyht.com) supplies a number of products and services to the aviation industry. The company changed its name from AeroMechanical Services in 2012.

The company’s products include the AFIRS UpTime data-collection device, which records flight information as it happens and relays it to the aircraft operator’s facilities by satellite. FLYHT also sells an emergency device called FLYHTStream that sends real-time data to the ground for immediate analysis. As well, it recently introduced the Dragon, a lightweight, portable satellite communication device that lets users access FLYHT’s technology with an iPad.

In the three months ended September 30, 2014, the company’s revenue fell 17.1%, to $1.8 million from $2.2 million a year earlier. FLYHT lost $174 million, or $0.01 a share, compared to a loss of $615,950, or nil per share.

Mystery surrounding Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 pushed up FLYHT shares

In March 2014, the stock jumped from around $0.56 to as high as $0.80 before falling to around $0.30 in July and drifting sideways since then (it’s currently at $0.34). The rise followed the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The company’s systems could possibly have shed light on the airliner’s fate as it disappeared, rather than having to wait for its black box data recorders to be recovered.

The company operates in a competitive market, and it needs to keep spending heavily on research and marketing to stay ahead of the competition. The stock attracted interest after the flight MH370 disappearance and the more recent AirAsia flight QZ8501 crash, but the extreme rarity of plane crashes makes it unlikely that airlines will rush to install an alternative to the black box for that reason alone.

However, FLYHT continues to steadily attract customers and is making sales, including a recent contract to install AFIRS on 218 planes belonging to seven different airlines in China. New Chinese government regulations call for all commercial aircraft to be equipped with satellite communication technology by 2017.

We view FLYHT Aerospace as a hold for highly aggressive investors only.

Monday Monday we look at the risks and rewards for aggressive investors in robotics.