Aerospace Engineering holds the Company's military and civil design approvals and provides a range of services in both the military and commercial sector for customers who require the design, build and experimental flight of both manned and unmanned airborne systems. Aerospace Engineering has a substantial track record and pedigree for conversion of aircraft for experimental purposes and in particular provides a turnkey service for undertaking flight trials, using experimental platforms. Work undertaken includes research into and development of new technologies; Sense and Avoid, Experimental Radars, Atmospheric Research, various new Avionic modifications for the civil and military markets.
Aerospace Engineering provides a range of design services for the aircraft primes in the areas of certification requirements, capture and clearance, and flight clearances for both manned and unmanned airborne systems. As well as being approved by both the CAA and EASA to design, build, and fly experimental aircraft solutions, Aerospace Engineering is also approved to provide military aircraft releases (MAR's) as well as conduct experimental flight trials for the Ministry of Defence and its major primes.
Aerospace Engineering's links with Cranfield University provide a unique capability in the marketplace to take new technologies such as composite structures through to certifiable solutions for the aircraft industry.
Aircraft Modifications
Aerospace Engineering within Cranfield Aerospace has undertaken a wide range of aircraft conversion / modification programmes, both for the military and the civil market. Key to this activity is the range of approvals held by the company and the attention paid to meeting customer needs involving installation, and sometimes manufacture, outside the UK.
Maintenance Services
CAe utilises its own UK based hangar facilities under its Part 145 Maintenance Organisation approvals, to provide installation services, maintenance and ongoing support. CAe is also an approved design and production organisation (EASA and MOD) and has the authority to design, build and manufacture modifications (minor and major) and repairs for both military and commercial aircraft.
CAe has many years of experience in working closely with its customers from initial requirements capture to aircraft survey, through to design and certification of bespoke modifications, aircraft specific repair schemes and both scheduled and unscheduled maintenance.
Cranfield Aerospace’s main areas of activity within Avionics include Flight Trials whereby we install manufacturers equipment e.g. radars and sensors, onto a test aircraft usually at the prototype stage and proceed to test the equipment during real flight. During the test flight we gather data, which we then analyse and present to the customer in the form of a report. Our findings enable the customer to refine the prototype and / or proceed to the production stage.
The Design Services team is part of the EASA and MoD DAOS approved organisation in Cranfield Aerospace Limited. For the major primes in the industry we undertake some of the more challenging and difficult tasks required, where it is important to push out new boundaries, whether in aerodynamic performance, structural limits, manufacturability, weight reduction, or new technologies required for research. We perform all of these tasks, both for metallic and composite structures and for complete system architectures for manned and unmanned airborne systems.
The team within Aerospace Engineering has built up a strong reputation for providing flight trials for rapid evaluation of new technologies, assessment of experimental product solutions, evaluation of new pilot training routines for the military, and the testing of Cranfield Aerospace produced modifications aimed at the commercial market in the form of Service Bulletins or EASA approved modifications.
Aerospace Engineering has been working closely with a number of the UK primes to tackle some of the difficult issues involved in adapting and converting various airborne systems for UOR deployment. Cranfield Aerospace has both the technical skills and the programme responsiveness qualities to work well as a member of the supply team or as its leader. The Company has been congratulated by various individuals within MoD DE&S for its contribution to recent initiatives relating to UOR deployment.
