Latest news about Midlands aerospace

Birmingham-based Dunlop Aircraft Tyres has expanded its team with the appointment of Patrice Moreau as general sales manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Seven aerospace suppliers from the Torino-Piemonte aerospace cluster in Italy visited the MAA last week and spent three days meeting with 13 MAA members to develop new business relationships and discuss new technologies.

The visit was a reciprocal trade mission to last May when 10 MAA members travelled to Italy to hold 1-to-1 meetings with buyers from Alenia Aermacchi, Avio, and UTC (Mictrotecnica), as well as AgustaWestland and Secondo Mona from the Lombardy cluster.

The company, which has been based in the city for more than 100 years, is completely unrelated to Goodyear Dunlop, which is reportedly looking to relocate its Dunlop Motorsport operation later this year when the lease on its current factory expires.

Apprenticeship schemes don’t just grow a successful business; they help the wider economy and build the leaders of tomorrow, as Midlands firm Alloy Heat Treatment is illustrating.

Nasmyth Group, a leading global manufacturer and supplier of precision engineering products and services, announced today that it has acquired the trade and certain assets of Arden Precision Limited, (“Arden”) based in Solihull.

With assistance from UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), Wallwork Cast Alloys, a supplier of temperature resistant castings has initiated an export campaign aimed at Scandinavia and Northern Europe.

Rolls-Royce has announced that its order book rose significantly in 2013, led by its civil aerospace business. The company received orders for engines to power 334 widebody aircraft in 2013, or about 2.5 years of production; with the value of the civil aerospace order book up £18.9bn -- equivalent to 3/4 the annual output of the whole UK aerospace industry.

Midlands Aerospace Alliance analysis (left) shows the ratio of order book to revenue continuing to fall, following its 2007 jump when the Trent XWB engine for the Airbus A350 was launched.

Autodesk, Inc. completed its acquisition of Delcam, one of the world’s leading suppliers of advanced computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software, on February 6th.