Dunlop Aircraft Tyres has announced the signing of a major deal with Korea Aerospace Industries. The Birmingham-based manufacturer will be the exclusive supplier of tyres for its new Korean utility helicopter, the Surion. The aircraft is being developed to replace South Korea’s aging fleet of 500MD and UH-1H aircraft. The Surion made its first flight early in 2010 and more than 245 are on order.
Birmingham-based Dunlop Aircraft Tyres has appointed Marcus Hancock as technical director. Hancock has 21 years’ experience in the tyre industry and joins Dunlop from Cooper Tire & Rubber Company Europe, where he was general manager for the company’s European Technical Centre with responsibility for overseeing all product development for the region. The company’s former technical director Martin Pye has moved into a new role as head of original equipment sales. He will seek to strengthen Dunlop’s relationship with, and secure new business from customers, including airframers and landing gear manufacturers.
The supply agreement Michelin has operated with the US Navy since 2000 has been extended with the exercising of a second five-year option. The tyre maker will thus continue supplying 100 per cent of the Navy’s aircraft tyres around the world, including those required by deployed aircraft carriers. In announcing the extension of its supply contract, Michelin says its management of the Navy’s tyre performance-based logistics (PBL) program has eliminated backorders, reduced the Navy wholesale tyre inventory and reduced retail allowances by two-thirds, or nearly $2 million. Michelin states it has also reduced logistics response times, resulting in 99 per cent on-time (in four days or less) delivery anywhere in the world.
Dunlop Aircraft Tyres reports securing a major deal to support the new fleet of Bombardier CRJ1000 Next Gen regional jets operated by Spanish carrier Air Nostrum. The Valencia based airline operates as a franchise of Iberia Airlines and has 20 of the new aircraft on order, with options on a further 15. This will be the largest fleet of CRJ1000s in the world and Air Nostrum will take delivery of its first aircraft later this month. Dunlop Aircraft Tyres will supply the two nosewheel and four mainwheel tyres for each of the 100-seat aircraft.
Dunlop Aircraft Tyres is the world’s only specialist aircraft tyre company, and in 2010 the firm celebrated a century in the business. After a hundred years the Birmingham-based manufacturer is still going strong and recently announced further additions to its research, quality and production teams.
Trelleborg has signed an agreement for the acquisition of the UK’s Watts Tyre Group through its Trelleborg Wheel Systems business area, an action the Swedish company believes will strengthen its industrial tyre segment position through geographic expansion and an increased presence in the aftermarket. Watts has annual sales of approximately £27.4 million and about 230 employees. The purchase consideration amounts to approximately £21 million.
On November 11 the EEF announced the Midlands region winners in its 2010 Future Manufacturing Awards, and Dunlop Aircraft Tyres’ apprentice Adam Cox was honoured for the quality of his work. At a ceremony held in the Warwickshire town of Gaydon, Cox was named runner-up in the Outstanding Achievement by a Final Year Apprentice Award for his work in the design of aircraft tyres for some of the world’s newest civil and military aeroplanes.
Goodyear Aviation has announced today at the NBAA2010 show in Atlanta that its radial aircraft tyre expansion project will be completed by the first quarter of 2011 – ahead of schedule – which will double the company’s radial tyre production capacity. The radialisation of aircraft tyres is a key economical and ecologically-friendly strategy in the aviation industry’s attempts to burn less fuel per passenger, since radial tyres are lighter than the bias or crossply alternatives. The move towards radialisation in the industry has been slow not just because of the changes required in long-lasting hardware, but also because aircraft tyres are retreaded frequently and crossply tyres provide extra casing strength to allow the process to be completed more times; an issue the UK’s Dunlop Aircraft Tyres chairman Ian Edmondson discussed at length with Tyres & Accessories earlier in the year (see below for a link to this interview).
September 2010's Retreading Special supplement produced in both English and German by Tyres & Accessories and Neue Reifenzeitung is now available for virtual viewing online. The latest edition of the increasingly popular retreading publication features exclusive articles on Bridgestone/Bandag's arrival in Europe, the latest innovations from Kraiburg and an interview with the chairman of Dunlop Aircraft Tyres concerning the company's new Chinese retreading facility, as well as latest profit and loss reports from the sector. Click more to read the complete 32-page product.
In its centenary year, Dunlop Aircraft Tyres is part of the way through an expansion plan designed to double the size of the company in terms of new tyres made. With a view to achieving this, the company has set up a joint venture in China with the Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company, named Dunlop Taikoo. Before the recession hit the world’s economies, Dunlop AT had planned to set up a similar facility to cater to the North American market; plans that are still very much at the forefront of the current expansion strategy. It has also recently purchased tyre-making and testing equipment from Yokohama Rubber following the Japanese manufacturer’s decision to withdraw from aircraft tyre production at the end of March 2009. The purchase and installation of the equipment at Dunlop’s Fort Dunlop plant has enabled the Birmingham-based company almost immediate access to the Boeing 777 market for example, an aircraft used heavily in domestic flights.
Reports from the Farnborough International Airshow indicate Dunlop Aircraft Tyres has an eye on setting up overseas manufacturing operations. Speaking at the show, company chairman Ian Edmondson said that Dunlop Aircraft Tyres may establish a factory in China in five years time, when the tyre maker has “no room to expand in our existing location.
Russia’s Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company has signed a contract with Michelin for the exclusive supply of radial aircraft tyres for its latest major project, the Sukhoi Superjet 100 family of regional airliners. The deal was announced at Michelin’s stand during the Farnborough Airshow 2010.
Last night saw the celebration of Dunlop Aircraft Tyres’ Centenary take place in earnest following an open day and a visit to the company’s Fort Dunlop plant by The Duke of York, with the launch of a new commemorative book, the premiere of a film by artist Angus Boulton commissioned to celebrate the centenary and the introduction of a new corporate video. The venue for the prestigious occasion was The Wapping Project, London’s last Hydraulic Power Station, now regenerated as a post-industrial exhibition space and restaurant by Australian theatre director, Jules Wright.
Michelin's Investor Relations Department has updated its company consensus. The figures presented in the consensus are based upon data published by financial analysts who monitor the Michelin share, or directly collected from them. The average of the analysts’ responses anticipate full-year 2010 net sales of 16,772 million euros, increasing to 17,979 million in 2011 and 18,832 million euros in 2012. The analysts’ average figure for operating income and operating margin in 2010 is 1,138 million euros and 6.8 per cent respectively. For 2011 these figures are 1,436 million euros and 8.1 per cent, and 1,696 and 9.0 per cent for 2012. The average estimate for net income this year is pegged at 637 million, while in 2011 and 2012 net income is expected to rise to 870 million and 1,041 million respectively.
Having opened late in 2009, Dunlop Aircraft Tyres’ joint venture distribution and retreading facility, Dunlop Taikoo (Jinjiang) Aircraft Tyres Company Limited is expanding its sales department in anticipation of coming growth in Chinese aeronautics. The company has appointed Jenny Chen as a technical sales manager, joining the company from the Guangzhou office of P&R International, where for over four years she was business development manager with responsibility for the Chinese aviation marketplace. She is tasked with generating new business as well as providing account management to existing airline and MRO customers throughout China.
If you would like the latest news from the Chinese tyre industry in Chinese, visit our partner site TyrepressChina.com. Or click below to continue on Tyrepress.
