Doing what we do best for CSeries

Midlands aerospace has welcomed the first flight of Bombardier’s innovative super-efficient CSeries narrowbody airliner, the Canadian company’s 110-140 seat challenger to small airliners offered by Airbus and Boeing.

And the Midlands does what it does best for the CSeries: Companies from across the region are contributing cutting-edge mechanical, hydraulic, electronic and gas turbine technologies to enhance the performance of the aircraft and that of its Pratt & Whitney pathbreaking PurePower® PW1500G “geared turbofan” engines.

Controlling extra lift for the wing on take-off and landing

• UTC Actuation Systems – Actuation Systems Wolverhampton is responsible for the high-lift (flap and slat) actuation system at the front and rear of the wings. 

Squeezing air into the engines.

• ITP Engines UK, located in Lincoln and Leicester, makes sophisticated integrally bladed rotors (IBRs) which squeeze air through the engine’s compressor system.

Keeping the engines cool.

• UTC Aerospace Systems subsidiary HS Marston Aerospace, also based in Wolverhampton, also makes high-performing heat exchangers for the engines.

Slowing the aircraft rapidly on landing

• UTC Actuation Systems – Actuation Systems also supplies the thrust reverser actuation system (TRAS) which pushes engine air forwards after landing.
• Coventry’s Meggitt Aircraft Braking Systems is supplying key mechanical actuators for the Meggitt advanced electric braking system known as Ebrake for the CSeries which includes nose and main wheels, electric actuators, and associated control system elements, also deploying Meggitt's lightweight, longer lasting NuCarb carbon heatsinks.

Keeping the aircraft safe

• UTC Actuation Systems – Actuation Systems makes the power door opening system (PDOS) – the actuators on the nacelle doors that maintenance engineers use to access the engine.

And at lower levels of the supply chain Midlands companies are providing their special expertise to the CSeries. One example is Ilkeston, Derbyshire’s Atlas Composites, which supported Senior Aerospace’s engineering team to develop environmental control system ducts (which circulate air inside the aircraft) in lightweight composite materials.

Another is Comar Engineering of Wolverhampton which designed and made several static test rigs to UTC Aerospace Systems – Actuation Systems including rigs for complete wing systems as well as rigs for flaps, for slats, for power drive units and for the TRAS, several in both right and left versions for the respective wings.