STELIA Aerospace & Bombardier Launch AILE Project to Innovate Lightweight, Intelligent Wings

 

 

STELIA Aerospace (Toulouse, France) has started a project with Bombardier (Montreal, Canada) through its two Canadian subsidiaries — STELIA Aéronautique Canada (Mirabel, Québec) and STELIA Aerospace North America (Lunenburg, Nova Scotia) — as part of a new collaborative research project, AILE (Aile Intelligente et Légère pour l’Environnement or Intelligent and Light Wing for Environment).

AILE is part of the third phase of the SA²GE (Systèmes Aéronautiques d’Avant-Garde pour l’Environnement /Cutting-edge Aeronautical Systems for Environment) greener aircraft mobilization project, supported by the government of Québec. This project is part of a 3-year partnership in which STELIA Aerospace will develop and produce a high-lift trailing edge flap made of thermoplastic composite, to be used as a testbed for Bombardier.

STELIA Aéronautique Canada’s R&T teams, supported by the France-based R&T team, will manage the project and its design and scaling phase. Manufacturing of the tooling and the full-scale demonstrator will be managed by STELIA Aerospace North America.

For this new R&T project, STELIA Aerospace will be backed by two partners : FusiA Impression 3D Metal Inc. for the design and production of 3D printed metal hinges (a Québec company whose French sister-company is already a partner of STELIA Aerospace in the SAMBA project - Shock Absorber Material for Bird Shield Application) and the CNRC (Conseil National de Recherches du Canada – Canadian National Research Council, Ottawa, Ontario), already a partner of STELIA Aerospace for metal research projects, who will bring its know-how and resources on thermoplastic composite materials.

STELIA Aerospace has been engaged with Bombardier for three years already, in a first collaborative R&T project aiming at reducing the cycle time necessary to produce a metallic wing frame for business jets.

“This new project with Bombardier highlights our wish to build strong links with our customer and will enable us to pursue our skill development strategy, while developing our footprint in Canada in terms of Research & Technology,” said Cédric GAUTIER, CEO of STELIA Aerospace.

See the breadth of STELIA’s R&T developments on its R&T webpage, scrolling down to see its latest R&T video. Also read CW’s tour of its Méaulte production facility and STELIALAB R&T center.