Huntington Beach aircraft products maker C & D; Aerospace said it could see a 10-fold jump in production of fortified cockpit doors if it gets at least part of a contract expected from The Boeing Co. and major U.S. airlines by year-end.
“What’s happening now is the whole fleet of 10,000 to 12,000 commercial aircraft out there needs to be refurbished with the new secure cockpit doors,” said Tom McFarland, C & D;’s marketing vice president. “What was previously a market just for new aircraft has opened up to this huge retrofit possibility.”
C & D; last month teamed with Honeywell International Inc. to jointly develop and market cockpit security doors and related gear. C & D; makes 40 cockpit doors a month, and company officials said they were confident of getting at least part of the contract to produce anti-terrorist doors. They declined to discuss how much revenue the company might realize from the work.
Officials at Wellington, Fla.-based B/E Aerospace Inc., a chief C & D; competitor, last week said they also expect to grab at least part of any secure cockpit door work.
C & D; officials have lofty plans for how big a share of the contract their company will capture. But McFarland said a lot depends on what the final cockpit door regulations are.
And the award announcement won’t necessarily happen all at once, he said.
“What’s happening right now is that all the major U.S. airlines are waiting for a uniform specification to be written,” McFarland said. “The Federal Aviation Administration really isn’t going to do that, because they just enforce policy.”
He said the major airlines are looking to Boeing to co-write that specification with them.
There is an issue as to whether Boeing is going to procure the doors through suppliers such as C & D; and then supply to airlines, or whether the airlines will buy directly from companies like C & D.;
But McFarland said he expected those kinds of decisions to be made by year-end.
“But nothing as yet has been approved,” McFarland said. “So we’re not yet at the point where everyone is saying, ‘This is the specification we want to move forward with.'”
C & D; employs about 2,000 in Orange County. If C & D; and Honeywell get a sizeable chunk of retrofitting work, then C & D; said it expects to hire 150 to 200 people at its Huntington Beach facilities and increase production to more than 400 cockpit doors a month.
The company went through layoffs in the early fall, reducing its OC roster from about 2,800 to 2,000. C & D;’s worldwide headcount went from 4,000 to 3,000.
“If we get the contract, then we hope to hire some of the laid-off people back,” McFarland said.
C & D; would make the doors, with Honeywell supplying the composite material used.
“Also, Honeywell will be taking their electronic and video expertise and we’ll take our interior expertise and offer that package as a solution,” McFarland said.
At the start of the year C & D; opened a new Huntington Beach facility at 5701 Bolsa Ave., a half-mile from its other operations at 5382 Argosy. Each facility occupies 150,000 square feet.
The company’s global operations include locations throughout the Southland, two plants in the Seattle area and one plant each in Tijuana, France and Brazil. Including Huntington Beach, the company’s 12 facilities give C & D; more than a million square feet of space.
Following Sept. 11, the company created a new division focused on security.
“Right away after Sept. 11, we developed reinforcement to cockpit door systems as a first phase of development,” McFarland said.
The company’s second phase in anticipation of a U.S. fleet retrofit is the development of a new cockpit door.
“That phase can solve the intrusion problem and also meet all the requirements the new doors have,” he said.
The requirements cover technical issues surrounding flight safety, decompression and letting pilots get in and out during different types of cockpit emergencies.
“But the new doors can’t be shot out, cut out or rammed through,” McFarland said.
A third phase is set to include a complete overhaul and redesign of airline cockpits themselves, with the front end of planes being made over so that pilots have amenities, including a lavatory, and don’t have to enter the passenger compartment during flight.
“The whole cockpit bulkhead and door would be intrusion-proof,” McFarland said.
Also, a new cockpit would use video systems that would allow pilots to monitor the passenger cabin. Keys would be replaced by electronic devices for entry into the cockpit.
C & D; last month said it had selected Honeywell’s Spectra composite material as the primary ballistic protection material for the new cockpit doors. The material is used in bullet-proof vests, tanks and helicopters.
“The material’s strength-to-weight ratio is much greater than other substances such as fiberglass, carbon fiber composites or aramid fibers,” said Scott Savian of C & D; Aerospace’s marketing division.
C & D; and Honeywell officials said they expect to get an approved design to market within a few months, according to Savian.
Honeywell also has been working with the FAA, airlines and industry groups to adapt existing technologies to bolster airline security. These include video tracking and facial recognition systems, overrides to prevent unauthorized shutdowns of aircraft systems, and explosion-resistant cargo holds.
Officials at Honeywell estimate the market for enhanced safety systems could be worth $500 million to $700 million in the next five years.
C & D; is a privately held company, founded in 1972 by James Downey, who still is the principal owner and chief executive. C & D; does little military work, other than some work on the C-17 cargo plane done at its Seattle division. n
