Yesterday Mark Prisk, Minister of State for Business and Enterprise opened a new £14.8m facility on the Isle of Wight that will be used to develop new composite aero engine components.
All sorts of ‘big hitters’ were there besides the Minister; including Marcus Bryson, CEO and President, GKN Aerospace and GKN Land Systems; Colin Smith, Director of Engineering at Rolls-Royce; the local MP; and the top brass from GKN on the Island.
£7.4m Government grant
Mark Prisk revealed that the Government has put £7.4m funding toward this GKN Aerospace and Rolls Royce joint-venture, CTAL.
The major focus of CTAL is developing the technology of creation of many aircraft engine blades from carbon-fibre with titanium edges, rather than solid titanium as they have been for years.
The benefit of these blades is a significant decrease in weight, leading to lower fuel use. As the casing that surrounds the engines is also formed of carbon fibre, there’s further weight reduction of the engine.
Speaking to the people there today, we learned that the market for the blades world-wide is huge, and growing.
Two podcasts
We’ve got two sections of audio – interviewing the Minister and the recording of his speech at the opening.
We chatted to the Minister, who we discovered is quite an aerospace fan …
Here’s Mark Prisk’s speech at the opening from earlier in the day …
Photos from the day
Click on images for full version.
