ATK is best-known as the world's biggest maker of small-calibre ammunition, and the prime contractor for the solid rocket motors that blast the Space Shuttle into orbit. But aerospace is at the spearhead of the company's drive to double turnover in five years to around $10 billion.
Already ATK has this year won two key A350 supply contracts that will see the Minneapolis-based manufacturer bill more than $1 million per aircraft on Airbus's next generation twin-aisle airliner.
The deals - with Rolls-Royce for aft fan cases and with Airbus for stringers and panels for the main fuselage - are ATK's first major commercial aerospace contracts, and evidence of the credibility it has built as a maker of exotic composite aerostructures since winning a contract with Lockheed Martin to supply wing skins for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. ATK also provides composite pivot shafts for the thrust vectoring system on the Lockheed Martin F-22.
The A350 deals, says communications head Tom Van Leunen, came at the end of a long period of hard work. "They are our entry into the market. You can't get any bigger than Airbus," he says, adding that the A350 contracts also mark ATK's first major foray overseas as it pushes to develop its international business.
Van Leunen declines to give names, but says other commercial airframers are in ATK's sights. However, ATK's focus is on developing the capacity it needs to supply Rolls-Royce and Airbus. Existing facilities at Clearfield, Utah and Iuka, Mississippi are being prepared to supply the first test products later this year.
In the meantime, Van Leunen reckons ATK is in good position to weather the economic turbulence. The company's defence supply works are not platform-reliant, although it is a supplier of ammunition and parts for many platforms. And the ammunition business, which covers everything up to tank shells and missiles, fits well with the US military's general thrust to put more boots on the ground; more soldiers in the field or in training, fire more shots.
"We're positioned well to survive in the US defence secretary Robert Gates budget era," says Van Leunen.
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Source: Flight Daily News
