Come on hive mind – don’t let me down – there must be someone out there who can answer this!

Involved in a project at work that requires a bespoke floor panel to be made for a plane that incorporate an active vibration control surface. We have the all the ‘clever’ stuff in hand, but need someone to design and make the floor panel itself….. and get it CAA approved.

Money no object – if it needs one off tooling made from Unicorn tusk coated in Dodo blood, so be it…..

Things have come a long way from sanding down bits of balsa wood and doped tissue.

Try Katron Engineering in Cheltenham

clicky

Magellan Aerospace in Poole / Bournmouth.

Thanks all – keep’em coming

Katron looks to have the manufacturing covered, but, ideally we need a design and certification service to support this as well….. in that sense Magellan looks to be a good shout – I’ll given them a call.

friend of mine’s company….
http://www.pes-performance.com/

Not sure if they do the CAA stuff, but they’ll sure as hell be helpful / find someone to do it if you give them a call.

TRB make aluminium and other honeycomb sheets, which are used for this type of application already (trains, planes etc). They make bits for our formula student car.

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Qinetiq?

http://www.qinetiq.com/what/Pages/default.aspx

Might be a bit sledgehammer/nut, don’t know.

Sam – a lot of cross-over with what we do already (analysis and testing), but will give them a shout. Thanks.

TRB might be about the right level, will add them to the list as well…

Qinetiq – hmmmm, have worked with them before on projects both as client and technical partner, not too impressed. I think the admin and management inertia for a quick one-off job would be a problem.

CAA approval will be the stumbling block – can’t you use an in-country partner supplier of the original plane manufacturer?
What plane is it if you don’t mind me asking?

How quickly do you need it? Because this task has “University Final Year Major Project” written all over it, and you’ve just enough time to get it submitted.
You could go to a Uni. with an accredited BEng/MEng Aerospace Engineering course and get a tie-up.
The student could then work through the CAA regs as part of the work. I did something similar for Pilatus (Switzerland) in mine, for in-flight testing.
There were a group of students building a GA aircraft from scratch as part of their major project & eventually it was to be pushed through to flight.

Hertfordshire, Manchester, Salford (maybe, if it’s still going!), Loughborough, etc might all help.

That is a possibility – it’s a Bombardier 5000. There are a lot of options on the table as to how to go about this. Unusualy, cost is genuinely at the bottom of the priority list/not an issue – effectiveness, speed of implimentation and quaility are at the top.

EDIT: We have strong links to Universities around the UK, and have looked into it but, as per the above, a final year project is going to be too long.

What’s it for?

NDA prevents more detail…..

Try Marshall Aerospace in Cambridge. I’ve worked with them before and they can handle a one-off airframe mod and the associated CAA paperwork. Good guys, but like anything in aviation it will cost you an arm and a leg.

Don’t use Qinetiq – they will promise the world but only deliver headaches.

way back I used to get turner aviation(in Glasgow) to do some welding on broken avionics chassis. Not sure if they do fabrication

They are (haven’t used them in 10 years) CAA aproved

Also used to work at Qinetic, they are big fans of masses of red tape