Situated in southwest England, Messier-Dowty’s Gloucester facility has been at the forefront of landing gear technology for over 70 years, dating from the innovative solutions of its founder Sir George Dowty in the ’30s, with the development of the first internally sprung wheel, to the advanced landing gears of the world’s most modern aircraft.
Today the 44,000m2 facility employs approximately 1000 people. Activities include a total capability from concept to in-service support including design, development, test, production, processing (heat treatment, surface finishing, etc), assembly and product support. Core competencies at Gloucester include a strong engineering function involved in design, research, development & test and systems integration together with a comprehensive, state of the art production capability.
The Gloucester test facility includes extensive capability for strength, fatigue, drop, endurance, environmental testing and systems integration. Production activities focus on critical components including complex major structures such as large main fittings and bogies/truck beams for large commercial aircraft, plus main fittings and the larger components for military and commuter aircraft.
Programs supported at Gloucester include:
- Airbus A330/340 family of main gears; A318/319/320/321 family of main gears; A310 bogies; Airbus Military A400M nose gear; Boeing 787 truck beams; Eurofighter/Typhoon landing gear system; Boeing T-45 Goshawk main gear and BAE Nimrod MRA4 nose & main gears.
Landing gear spares support includes : BAE Harrier & Boeing AV-8B nose & main gears; Panavia Tornado nose & main gears; Sepecat Jaguar nose gear; Avro RJ ( 146 ) main & nose gears; Fokker 50 nose and main gears; Fokker 70 & 100 nose gears and BAE ATP nose and main gears.
