Kaman Aerospace, the diversified US-headquartered aerospace group, enters the 2014 Farnborough air show, having substantially reinforced its UK presence.
In May this year it opened a new 34,000ft² (3,160m²) facility in Burnley, Lancashire in the northwest of England. The purpose-built site is designed to cope with the increasing size required for modern aircraft tooling.
Pride of place in the new Tooling Center of Excellence is a massive 20m (65ft) five-axis CNC milling machine capable of producing an item 21m long by 3m high by 1.5m wide – one of the largest machines of its kind in Europe.
One of the products from the factory will be the tool that makes major sections of the Airbus A350’s wings.
Also being installed at Burnley is a 6m co-ordinate measuring machine that will be used for complex high-precision digital inspections of components. The company says the new site will also become one of the few UK locations to have a state-of-the-art design suite for enhanced design and manufacturing.
Mark Podmore, managing director of Kaman Tooling, proudly describes it as “quite a monster”.
The new facility will considerably increase the capacity of Kaman, already a world-leading supplier of moulds and assembly tooling, along with ground support and handling equipment.
It will also create a number of new jobs over the next two years as Kaman continues its relocation to Burnley’s Innovation Park. The site will virtually double in size by 2015 to 64,000ft², says Podmore. And space freed up at its plant in nearby Darwen will be used for composite manufacture.
In part, the expansion is driven by the industry-wide ramp-up, as the airframers deal with massive order backlogs.
Key programmes for the site include the Airbus A320neo and A330. Although it does not deal with Airbus directly, it supplies the Tier 1 aerostructures firms, such as Spirit AeroSystems in Prestwick.
Other noteworthy programmes include Bombardier’s CSeries and Learjet 85, BAE Systems for the Eurofighter Typhoon, Hawk T2 trainer and – via BAE Systems – Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
“Obviously being part of Kaman gives us access to the USA, but we’re also supplying a lot of European customers. There’s Airbus in Europe, people like Augusta Westland in Italy. We’ve got quite a large European base as well.
“We’re also supplying parts into China for the Comac C919 programme. And even where there aren’t new programmes, some of the current-generation aircraft lines are ramping up, so they need extra tooling. When they’re going from 10 aircraft a month to 20 aircraft a month then they need more and more tooling to achieve that.”
But, aerospace isn’t the only growth area – the firm is also eyeing other markets such as motorsport – via Red Bull Racing – and even submarine building. “By having this new facility, having more space, having the bigger machines and the bigger inspection equipment, we can take on work from other industries,” says Podmore.
Al Lariviere, president of Kaman Composite Structures, says the decision to invest in the UK was an easy one. “Basically we chose to invest to capitalise on expertise that we already had here.
“The employees we have in the tooling site are critical to our success going forward,” he says.
It also forms part of the group’s “womb to tomb” vision for the components it produces. “We used to go to the market as individual business units, now we go to the market as one, which is a lot more attractive to our customers.
“Innovation is going to be at the forefront of our vision where we can provide a competitive advantage for both Kaman and our customers,” he says.
Kaman is also expanding in Germany. It bought bearings specialist RWG in 2012 and has tripled its revenue since then. Having outgrown its previous location in Dachsbach, southern Germany, a new 60,000ft² facility at nearby Hӧchstadt will double capacity and provide options for future expansion.
In the USA, the Bloomfield, Connecticut-based Kaman brought a new engineering plant in Charleston, South Carolina, on line in February.
“We’re definitely on the move,” says Gary Tenison, Kaman’s group vice-president for aerospace business development. “We’re right on the edge of great things.”
The group is today split between aerospace and industrial distribution sectors. Despite producing just 37% of 2013’s $1.7 billion turnover, the aerospace section of the organisation accounted for 71% of the group’s $148 million operating profit.
Kaman Aerosystems is the largest activity within the company, covering both metal and composite aerostructures, as well as tooling, testing and air vehicles. Customers include other major manufacturers such as Spirit AeroSystems, GE Aviation and Aircelle. Fuzing & Precision Products and Specialty Bearings & Engineered Products form the other two legs of the Kaman Aerospace triad.
The company produces fuzes for a range of US aviation ordnance, including AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, Maverick and Tomahawk missiles as well as the JDAM GPS-guided bombs and Paveway bombs.
Although rotary-wing craft have formed the basis of Kaman’s existence, it does not currently have any new-build helicopters in production. However, it remains involved in the business: more than 20 manned K-MAX cargo helicopters, with the company’s trademark contra-rotating propellers, operate in areas such as firefighting and logging, and the company is prepared to restart production if the market shows sufficient interest.
Several examples of its groundbreaking unmanned K-MAX were deployed to Afghanistan by the US Army, where two of the vehicles moved more than 4.5 million lb (2 million kg) of cargo in around 1,900 missions, primarily at night.
“Its performance has been fantastic for reliability,” says Tenison. “It required just 1.3-1.4 maintenance hours per flight hour. It’s now being redeployed to a US base where it will continue to perform and be studied.”
Kaman’s aircraft portfolio also includes the SH-2G Super Seasprite naval helicopter. Another out-of-production type, Kaman retains airframes that are available for upgrade for customers.
The Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) is awaiting the imminent arrival of the first of 10 SH-2G(I) variants (two of which will be used as spares) that will replace five earlier examples of the type and allow the RNZN to have more helicopters available. The current fleet of five only allows two to be at sea at any given time. All 10 new examples should be delivered by the end of 2015.
The Super Seasprite also serves with Poland and Egypt, and Tenison says Kaman is hoping to close deals with other nations for further examples that are available to upgrade.
Elsewhere in the rotary-wing sector, Kaman produces lower fuselages, cockpits and doors for the Bell AH-1Z Viper, and has delivered more than 1,000 cockpits to Sikorsky for its Black Hawk helicopter.
Source: Flight Daily News
