Chancellor hails GKN's world-beating composite wing facility

New plant will be used to make rear wing spars for the Airbus A350XWB

Chancellor George Osborne has opened a state-of-the-art composite wing manufacture and assembly plant in Filton, near Bristol. GKN has invested £170 million in the facility that will be used to produce wing structures for the new Airbus A350 XWB aircraft.

Osborne said: “I have never seen anything as futuristic and space age as what I've seen here. The aerospace industry is a national asset to be treasured.”

The 30,000m2 facility is an international centre of excellence in composite wing structure design and production. It is housed in two buildings – one for manufacture and the other for assembly. GKN has designed and developed the rear wing spars of the aircraft's wings and is pioneering cutting edge techniques to put them together.

The rear wing spars are produced in three parts using an automated fibre placement process that sees robotic heads lay strips of carbon at a rate of up to 10kg per hour. Parts of the spar are then assembled and the trailing edge fitted in a moving line assembly operation where driverless electric vehicles move the parts between robotic work stations.

The facility, known as Western Approach, also manufactures and assembles the composite wing spar and trailing edge for the Airbus A400M military aircraft. The A400M wing spar was the first primary wing structure for a large aircraft to be created entirely using carbon reinforced plastic.

More than 300 people currently work at the site, with the number of employees set to rise to 450 by 2016.

Nigel Stein, chief executive of GKN, said: “This is a great day for GKN – and for UK manufacturing. Western Approach is a vital part of our drive to take a significant part of the growing global wing structures market.”

He added: “This is an investment we have made for the long term ensuring GKN Aerospace strengthens its position in aero structures, making it a global leader in the manufacture of primary composite structures for large aircraft.”