Aerospace Assembly

RSS

MOBILE, AL—Airbus officially inaugurated its first U.S. assembly plant here Monday. The $600-million factory will produce 40 to 50 jetliners in the A320 family per year, while sustaining the equivalent of some 3,700 full-time jobs in the region.

PALMDALE, CA—Assemblers at Northrop Grumman Corp.’s plant here recently started to use an optical projection system to build the center fuselage of the F-35 Lighting II fighter jet. The facility was the recipient of ASSEMBLY’s 2013 Assembly Plant of the Year award.

MOBILE, IL—Airbus will formally open its first US assembly plant here Sept. 14. The company says the facility will be its most efficient and will be capable of producing up to eight jetliners a month by 2018.

TITUSVILLE, FL—Embraer has begun construction of a new assembly plant here. The factory will manufacture seating for jets and is expected to bring 150 new jobs to the area.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL—Boeing opened a new factory here on Friday, where work is underway to build a replacement for the space shuttle.

Turbines housed in aircraft engines are regularly subjected to very harsh conditions.

LAFAYETTE, LA—Bell Helicopter has opened a $26 million assembly plant here to build a new small commercial helicopter.

BEIJING—Boeing predicts that China will add 6,330 new aircraft worth $950 billion to its commercial fleet by 2034—an increase of more than 310 planes from its last forecast a year ago.

ST. CROIX, WI—Airworthy Aerospace Industries Inc., a manufacturer of aircraft interior components, is investing $4.6 million to expand its assembly plant here. The company is expected to create 45 new jobs.

PARIS—Airbus has developed “connected glasses” for technicians to wear on the A330 final assembly line. The glasses enable precise positioning—down to the millimeter—during the cabin installation marking process, when operators designate the exact location where seats and cabin furnishings should be affixed inside the aircraft.