Aerostructures
Overview
We are market leading and technology leading in aerostructures, supporting our customers in making aircraft fly faster, further and greener.
We provide empennages, wing structures, fuselages and components for major platforms ranging from helicopters to business jets and from advanced fighter aircraft to the most used single aisle aircraft and the largest passenger planes in the world. With lightweight composites, additive manufacturing and innovative high speed machining technologies we help to reduce emissions and weight on the aircraft and enhance passenger comfort.
Wings
We leverage our unique and extensive expertise across primary and secondary structures, components, control surfaces and systems in conjunction with core assembly and integration skills to deliver leading and trailing edge assemblies ready to be plugged into our customers’ wing assembly lines.
Fuselages
We are engaged in the design, development, certification, manufacture and assembly of metal and composite fuselage structures for rotary and fixed-wing aircraft including military fighters and transport, commercial and general aviation platforms.
Empennages
We are market leader in empennages for business jets. The Gulfstream G650 and HondaJet business jets, both feature GKN Aerospace’s optimised, efficient and cost effective empennages. Innovative light weight thermoplastic composite solutions are included in each of the tails. Our expertise also includes empennages and aft-sections for rotorcraft like the NH90, Chinook and AW169 helicopters.
Nacelles & Pylon
We are responsible for the complete design, development, manufacture, assembly and certification of a number of turboprop and turbofan solutions including engine build unit (EBU) and podding.
We work closely with customers such as Boeing, Spirit AeroSystems, and Pratt & Whitney to concurrently engineer lightweight, high temperature exhaust systems with noise attenuating properties. We are the sole supplier to date of the “spun and machined lipskin”. This manufacturing process is superior to traditional manufacturing methods because it delivers a more precise dimensioned and better fitting part than traditional manufacturing methods. Spinning and machining a lipskin reduces the manufacturing time, requires much lower tooling costs and produces a precision machined part that fits every time.