Bidos, France, 5 December, 2005 - Messier-Dowty, a SAFRAN group company, today began the first metal cutting at its Bidos production facility of the new landing gears for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. This first major structural landing gear component to be machined is the inner cylinder for the nose landing gear.
Production of the first titanium forgings for the major structural components of the main gear, including the truck beam and inner cylinder, will begin in the next few weeks. This activity will take place at Messier-Dowty’s facilities in Gloucester, UK, and Bidos, France. Messier-Dowty has carried out extensive titanium machining trials in order to deliver weight savings to the 787 program.
The first sets of landing gears will be used for Boeing’s aircraft systems rig, due for delivery in late 2006. Subsequent sets will be used for development testing in-house at Messier-Dowty, undergoing a complete program of testing through to certification, followed by gears for flight testing at Boeing. The first units to be fitted to the production aircraft are scheduled for delivery in 2007.
Messier-Dowty was selected to design and produce the 787 Dreamliner landing gears in March 2004. This was a significant achievement for the company and parent group SAFRAN, this being the first Boeing Commercial aircraft landing gear order for Messier-Dowty and the culmination of over 12 years of teamwork, working closely with Boeing in their development studies. Messier-Dowty is responsible for the design, development, testing, manufacture and integration of the main and nose landing gear structure, and will work closely with Boeing to provide in-service support.
Messier-Dowty already supplies landing gears for a number of Boeing military aircraft including the F/A-18, AV-8B, T-45 & V-22 Osprey plus a substantial sub-contract element of the landing gear for Boeing’s 777 commercial aircraft.
During the joint definition phase, Messier-Dowty engineers worked alongside Boeing teams, designing the landing gear and supporting aircraft interface and integration. Messier-Dowty has now entered the detailed design phase, concentrating landing gear design activities at the company’s Seattle office, staffed with engineers from Seattle and from Messier-Dowty sites in Canada the UK and France. Messier-Dowty is part of Boeing’s Life Cycle Product Team (LCPT) combining knowledge and experience from design, test, operations and customer services, to consider all aspects of the landing gears throughout the life cycle of the aircraft. Testing of the gears will take place at Messier-Dowty’s test centers located at Gloucester and Toronto.
Production for the 787 will take place at Messier-Dowty’s existing centers of manufacturing excellence around the world. The production plan for the major components of the gears includes the manufacture of the inner cylinder in Bidos France, the outer cylinder in Montreal, the truck beam in Gloucester and linkage parts from its Suzhou operation in China. During the initial production cycle the gears will be assembled at the Gloucester operation and as the program moves into volume production Messier-Dowty will move production to a North American assembly facility.