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Aviation History
1985
1985 - 0078.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT An advanced BAe wing for Airbus Industrie is tested in the tunnel at Hatfield, where the whole British contribution has been managed. New role for Yun-10? Flight-testing of the Yun-10, China's Boeing 707 look-alike, was completed last year. The aircraft, China's first indigenously-designed and built airliner, is now being studied for use in the airborne early warning role, apparently re-engined with CFM56-2 turbofans. British Airbus moves to Bristol BRISTOL The centre of British Aero space work on Airbus, hitherto at Hatfield, is being moved to Filton, Bristol, so that the Hertfordshire site can concentrate on its expan ding 146 and 125 work. BAe has been responsible for the design and construc tion of Airbus A300 and A310 wings, and on the A320 it has been given an increased share of work. All BAe A320 design, manufacturing, and project management will now be centred on Bristol. This will include co-ordinating the German, Belgian, and Austra lian contributions to the wings, final assembly of which will be at Bristol. Bristol Aircraft and Warton Division together have about 50 per cent of A320 production work. Other BAe sites sharing the work are (with rough percentages) Chester (19), Chadderton (five), Weybridge (four), Hatfield (two), and Brough (over one). BAe remains responsible for the basic wing box and the fuel system of the earlier Airbus versions; on the A320 BAe takes design and manu facturing responsibility for much of the rest of the wing. The double-curvature design wing represents about 20 per cent of the airframe and is the most technologically advanced part of it. The first £2 million 7y-ton wing-set has to be delivered to Airbus Industrie in Toulouse in May 1986 to meet the first-flight date of March 1987. BAe's partners in the Airbus Industrie consortium, MBB and Belairbus (the Belgian associate), will con tribute 16-3 per cent of the A320 wing with the manu facture of the flaps and one of the flap tracks and slats. The BAe Airbus team is led by Robert McKinlay, aircraft group director (Filton) and recently appointed to the executive committee and supervisory Board of Airbus, and Ray Haddow, civil division executive director (Airbus). A number of staff are moving from Hatfield and Weybridge to join the team. By 1991 35-40 per cent of Bristol's work will be on Airbus, and about a third of, the 1,500-strong production ^ workforce will be engaged on it. This is particularly important to BAe technically because the A320 is intro ducing fly-by-wire, or elec- . tronic flight control, to the civil aircraft market. BAe^ engineers will also be involved j in the integration of the new V.2500 engine into the A320.' The first V.2500-powered . A320 is expected to fly in late 1988. In the final assembly of the • A320 wing, Bristol will install the components and systems' coming from other sites and- will carry out the final checks and undercarriage tests. The complete wings will be flown ; from the site to Toulouse by t AI's Super Guppy. With 29-5 per cent of the A320 wing work, Warton Division and its three plants'' will be responsible for the design and manufacture of the leading and trailing edges and flap tracks and carriages as well as about 50 per cent of the carbon-fibre composite components. Warton will also be responsible for roughly half the titanium items being made by the superplastic ' forming and diffusion bond ing techniques pioneered by BAe. The manufacture of access doors and track cans by this method is being shared with Bristol. Chester's unique experience in Europe of machining andfl assembling large wing skins^j and building structural wing boxes is being extended from the A300 and A310 to the A320. Weybridge, which pion eered the development and manufacture of composite components—for example, fin skins for the VC10 and RB.211 engine cowlings—will be responsible for 50 per cent of composite work on the A320 wing. Weybridge is also involved in A320 design and windtunnel research. McKinley confirms that the UK Government is advancing £250 million to the A320 project. FLIGHT International, 12 January 198&
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