CompositesWorld
Issue link: https://cw.epubxp.com/i/944580
MARCH 2018 6 CompositesWorld FROM THE EDITOR » I visited Spirit AeroSystems (Wichita, KS, US) in mid-February. It was my first visit to Spirit, and I was given a thorough and insightful tour of the company's composites manufacturing and R&D; facilities. You will be able to read, soon, a full report of what I saw, with details about the manufacture of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner's forward fuselage section. It is not difficult to come away from a visit to Spirit AeroSystems impressed by the size, scope and depth of the company's involvement in aerospace manufacturing. e Wichita facility alone employs almost 11,000 people and provides composite and metallic structures for almost every major commercial aircraft in operation today, along with a handful of military aircraft. e buildings in which I spent most of my time would, anywhere else, stand as massive manufacturing monuments in their own right, but they represent just a sliver of the total capacity on Spirit's aeromanufacturing campus. I was struck in particular, however, by something I was told very early in my visit: Spirit AeroSystems has more than doubled its composites research and development investment in the past two years. at a company like Spirit does R&D; is not a surprise. Nor is it a surprise that a company like Spirit might increase its R&D; spending. What piqued my interest was the reason behind the investment: Spirit wants to be more than a Tier 1 aerospace supplier; it wants to be an integrated solutions provider, at the table with its customers to help optimize designs and to develop next-generation composite products and structures. What kinds of solutions? All, was the reply. In other words, Spirit wants to be ready for whatever the aerocomposites industry demands of it. e position that Spirit has taken is, I believe, emblematic of a broader truth about the aerocomposites industry today: We are in the middle of a sort of between-aircraft programs purgatory the likes of which we have never experienced before. Consider this: e decision by Boeing, and then Airbus, about 15 years ago, to pivot to composites for the 787 and the A350, respectively, marked the start of the modern aerocomposites era, drawing very much on technologies developed in the 1990s. Now, with those programs in series production, aerospace manufacturers everywhere are looking to the future more furtively than ever. What will be the Next Great Aircraft Program, and how will it use composites? Will it be a redesign of the 737 or A320? A 757 replacement? What will be that program's expectations and require- ments? What will be the composites opportunities on those craft? It's clear that Spirit AeroSystems (and its competitors) has looked at the technologies employed today to make the 787 fuselage — automated fiber and tape placement with autoclave cure — and reasonably questioned whether those same technologies in their current forms represent the future of aerocomposites. And if they do not, what is? Out-of-autoclave? Dry fiber placement? ermo- plastics? In-situ consolidation? Infusion? Resin transfer molding? Bonded structures? e answer, of course, as my hosts in Wichita said, is potentially all. Because of this, companies like Spirit AeroSystems are using this in-between time to take initiative on new technologies that might soon become solutions for aircraft OEMs. ey are taking a calcu- lated risk that they can develop the expertise, materials, tools and equipment to meet that evolving aerocomposites need, and in the process earn a piece of the Next Great Aircraft Program. is can be unnerving. Gambling in this environment, even care- fully, puts resources and people's jobs at risk — there will be mate- rials, technologies and companies not chosen for the Next Great Aircraft Program. On the other hand, we are living through and guiding technological evolution like never before. ose who place their bets now by working proactively and thoughtfully to anticipate what is needed and expected for the future's commercial aircraft will be in the best positions to claim their share of the prize. Spirit has almost 100 years of aerospace manufacturing history, and has accrued materials and manufacturing knowledge that has few rivals in the world. Its gamble on the future is probably a pretty good one, and one to which we should pay attention. Gambling carefully on the Next Great Aircraft Program. JEFF SLOAN — Editor- In- Chief