Story ID: 
GKN Aerospace moves to serve U.S. airframers
By: Charles Alcock
Caption: GKN Aerospace Services is promoting its growing capabilities in composites, machining and fabrication.
Word Count: 209
GKN Aerospace Services is promoting its growing capabilities in composites, machining and fabrication. In January, the UK-based group added Boeing’s former fabrication facility in St. Louis with a view to landing more work from U.S. airframers, including business aircraft builders.The company has been pioneering resin-transfer molding technology, which it believes is at the cutting edge of composite applications in aerospace. GKN makes the composite inlet for Honeywell’s turbofan AS907 turbofan engine, which powers the Bombardier Continental business jet, and the transparency for a Raytheon Hawker Horizon windscreen. It has also produced composite nacelles for Bombardier’s Dash 8 Series 100 and Series 400 twin-turboprop regional airliners, as well as for the Saab 2000, BAE Systems’ Jetstream 31 and 41 and the Dornier 328.In addition to the St. Louis operation and its main British factory at Cowes on the Isle of Wight, GKN Aerospace Services also includes the following facilities: Luton, UK (transparencies); Tallassee, Ala., and Munich, Germany (both composites); Portsmouth, UK (fuel cells and emergency flotation equipment); San Diego, Calif., and Tulsa, Okla. (fan blade repairs); and Fort Worth, Texas (composite repairs and electrothermal de-icing systems).Having been separated from GKN’s Westland division in an October 2000 restructuring, the company’s new corporate headquarters is located at Farnham in southern England.