William Hynett is chief executive of Britten-Norman Group, the UK's sole remaining privately owned aircraft manufacturer.
You have brought two aircraft - an Islander and a Defender - to the show. Which markets are you targeting with these aircraft?
We have just delivered the first aircraft of a new model - the BN-2C - which is basically a modified piston Islander with a selection of up-to-date modifications. It includes a whole series of enhancements, like three-bladed scimitar props for lower noise, an enlarged baggage door and avionics upgrades.
Both the aircraft we have on static are more to do with surveillance-type operations - one piston and one turbine variant.
The piston variant is an aircraft that we are brokering on behalf of a government body, which I can't give details on yet. That aircraft is fully equipped as a surveillance platform and with that aircraft we intend to offer people - on an advanced-booking basis - the opportunity to get airborne from the show to see the equipment in operation. It's standard government fit, with consoles in the back of the aircraft, with [data] downlink etc.
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The other aircraft that we have on static - a Defender - is an aircraft we've had here in the company for a few years and we've been using it primarily as a flying testbed.
What kind of services do you offer with the Defender?
We've done a lot of work for some large multinational companies and we're in the middle of a fairly lengthy trials phase for the equipment installed on it.
On the one hand, we're offering that as a service, which is one of our key skills in the business - the ability to integrate other people's products at a low cost and to offer low-cost flying trials for that equipment.
What we're also doing with that aircraft is pre-branding it for an upcoming lease, which fits in with an Australian company we're dealing with - a related party, but not a subsidiary of, Britten-Norman. This company is called Airborne Surveillance, which offers a surveillance-by-the-hour solution.
What other services are you offering as part of your efforts to grow the company?
We provide a variety of services within Britten-Norman. We sell new aircraft - that's one of our prime objectives - but about five years ago we started to get into refurbishment of aircraft.
The latest two have just been delivered from our Australian subsidiary. We take an Islander, strip it right back to basics and go through nose-to-tail renewing, refreshing and refurbishing as required to create an as-new product.
The logical progression of that is what we've started in the last six months - a brokerage service for people who wish to retain ownership of their aircraft, and may wish to mothball them in the short term, through to outright sale of their aircraft.
In the case of a government customer, for example, what we're offering is the ability to turn that aircraft around, either as-is, where-is and offer it to a new customer as a role-equipped aircraft, or to give them the option to come to us and, if the customer requests it, we'll de-role the aircraft, separate role equipment from the basic aircraft and return that aircraft in an as-new, simple standard.
Why are you aiming to become more involved in service-provision in addition to manufacturing?
There are a lot of Islanders changing hands worldwide and, hitherto, we haven't involved ourselves in that process other than through refurbishment. What we're doing now is opening up our business to be able to offer anything from new sales to refurbishment to brokerage, and sometimes that means someone comes in for a brokerage and ends up in an exchange-type situation.
What I'm looking to do is not just the brokerage. Ideally, what I'm offering is value-added to that aircraft. The idea is that if a customer comes in with an Islander that has five or 10 years out operating and doesn't want to invest in a full part-up, then what we are able to offer that customer is the ability to onward sell the aircraft for them and, as part of that process, offer the new customer any sort of minor refurbishment they want to take on without necessarily going to the full factory-approved refurbishment scheme. It's adding flexibility for both sellers and buyers, basically.
Why have you taken the unusual step of bringing manufacturing work previously outsourced to eastern Europe back in-house? Did you look at placing the work in other lower-cost countries, such as India or China?
We did consider that. What we looked at was the potential to outsource to a number of locations - China and India in particular. Part of the reason we were not so keen at that time to do it was because dealing in places like China is quite challenging from an aviation point of view.
There is a high degree of hand-holding required to make that work. That was really one of the reasons behind moving aspects of our manufacturing from eastern Europe, because there was just too much of a commitment required to hand-hold through the production process, and it just meant it's not financially viable.
The work they do out there can be really excellent and it can still represent reasonable value for money, but the amount of commitment you have to put in to being there as a business in terms of management is very high, and in a low-volume manufacturing scenario like ours, it becomes too burdensome.
Would you consider outsourcing manufacturing work to Asia in the longer term?
We did a cost-evaluation on the whole thing and I think if we were to move to a larger scale of manufacture, we would clearly look at outsourcing solutions again, but we felt that, based on the size and scale of our operation and the fact we don't wish to increase our manufacturing throughput - we wish to remain a low-volume manufacturer offering bespoke services - the most cost-effective way of doing that was to bring it back on shore, and in doing that we're regaining prime control of the whole cost structure associated with building the aircraft. Niche production plus services is what we are about in this business.
How does your presence at this year's show compare with two years ago?
We made a fairly major change last time around. We tended to be exhibition hall-based. We made the decision we would not do that any more. We didn't see the value for a product like ours to be inside a big hall. So we made the move in conjunction with an initiative we had at that time with Selex, where we put together an external booth with an aircraft on static. That was four years ago.
It was successful but, being perfectly honest, it was not a terribly salubrious set-up. So we made the decision two years ago that if we are to attend shows, we wish to make sure our set-up is big enough to make it worthwhile.
We decided to create our own "mini-cube" as opposed to the large Finmeccanica "cube" - look at ours as a scaled-down version of that really. We did that down the airfield with an aircraft on static, and it was very successful. It was highly visible to everyone at the show and well located on the flightline. We're doing that again this year.
Do you derive value for money exhibiting at a show like Farnborough?
The last show was very successful for us. We don't go to shows specifically to achieve sales like others purport to, but what we aim to do is market our products and services. But at the last show we had quite a high degree of business that was created at the show, which was quite unusual. Obviously we hope for the same again this time around.
We are here with the prime aim to provide services. In terms of manufacturing, we are very comfortable to sit with a niche line at our core, but really Britten-Norman is all about the other services we bring, some of which I think people would not expect. They brand us as just the Islander manufacturer, but there's a lot more this firm has to offer than that.
Source: Flight Daily News
