An acceleration sled propelled by two compressed air tanks has just concluded one of its first thrusts down a 120-foot runway in a renovated wing at the Huntington Beach headquarters of EnCore Aerospace LLC.
“We’ve got a live one,” exclaims co-founder and Chief Executive Tom McFarland, looking down onto the noisy scene from a makeshift second-floor observatory while a warning beeper sounds off by the second as the sled slowly returns to its resting position.
The custom-made dynamic crash test center, under construction with 1 million pounds of concrete and reinforced steel, is one of only a few in the world and will play a key role in the lengthy certification process for airline seats manufactured by EnCore’s newest business division, LIFT.
EnCore’s other divisions produce galleys and handle various subassembly work.
“Getting the seat to be structurally sound is not the hardest part,” McFarland says. “The hardest part in the industry and probably the biggest barrier to entry and why there isn’t a lot of seat manufacturers is the occupant injury.”
The test chamber, which will cost $5 million to $6 million to construct by the time the first tests begin next month, will propel crash dummies at a G-force of 16, or the known limits of survivability in a plane crash.
The speed is so fast—fractions of a second—that the motion can’t be captured by the human eye. Four crash test dummies, outfitted and embedded with sensors that put their individual cost in the tens of thousands, will be analyzed after every jarring trial run on a host of criteria, from head trauma, to leg and arm movement, to impact.
In the small fraternity of aircraft interior production, seating is the most difficult for which to gain regulatory approvals.
“You have to prove the dummy can survive in that crash. One little tweak, and the dummy moves completely differently,” McFarland says. “Getting one certified and delivered is a bit tricky.”
That challenge has a major bearing on why the estimated $4 billion seating segment consists of less than 10 established players. Zodiac Aerospace in France; B/E Aerospace Inc. in Wellington, Fla.; and Germany-based Recaro dominate the industry with a combined 70% to 80% market share.
EnCore co-founder James Downey in 2005 sold C&D Aerospace, which he built from the ground up, to Zodiac SA for $600 million. McFarland, a C&D executive at the time, was hired by Downey nearly 30 years ago as a young University of Notre Dame engineering graduate.
The duo now is looking to take market share from the company they helped grow into one of the largest suppliers in the aerospace sector.
“If we got 5%, that’s $200 million. For us, that’s plenty and more than doable,” McFarland says.
A partnership announced in April with Boeing Co.—EnCore’s largest customer—provided a solid foundation to launch LIFT.
EnCore will produce economy seats for the B737 aircraft and sell them directly to airlines. The seats are tailored for Boeing’s newly designed Sky Interior, and the first deliveries are scheduled for the second quarter of next year.
Seating and galleys are among the few components airlines can select on an ordered plane. EnCore’s Interiors division designs and manufactures both product lines, providing a benefit to customers interested in working with a single supplier.
The partnership should streamline production at Boeing’s airplane manufacturing hub in the Seattle area and relieve airlines of the responsibility of certifying seating by other contractors, delivering the units directly to Boeing.
“We’ve had a solid relationship with Boeing,” McFarland says. “They have a lot of trust in us that goes back years.”
Mexico Plant Adds Strength
Predictability is valued in the aerospace industry and is a big reason the Chicago-based manufacturing giant selected EnCore International’s outfit in Mexico last year to handle production and delivery of sidewall panels and cargo liner compartments for the Boeing 787-10.
The five-year agreement, which likely will extend for the life of the aircraft, barring any setbacks, potentially is worth tens of millions of dollars for the international division, which was established about a year ago in Tijuana.
Boeing selected EnCore before the company even acquired the land, built the 100,000-square-foot facility and ramped up hiring to about 100 primarily manufacturing jobs and designer positions, many filled by people who had worked for Downey and McFarland at C&D.
The plant in Mexico improves efficiency and “allows us to grow competitively,” according to McFarland.
The company recently moved its machine shop from Huntington Beach to the Tijuana location, which will produce subassemblies for EnCore’s growing business divisions and handle complete projects delivered to airframe manufacturers.
Future Looks Bright
EnCore Aerospace, which McFarland and Downey established in 2011, is projected to hit $100 million in revenue this year with a strong backlog poised to double sales by 2019 without any new business, McFarland said.
“I would be really surprised if we don’t exceed that.”
The company employs about 700, roughly 500 of them spread evenly between Huntington Beach and Brea, and 100 in Seal Beach.
LIFT is considered EnCore’s big growth driver in the coming years, given strong demand for new commercial aircraft production in the U.S. and internationally and the tough barrier to entry for newer players.
“We hope the economy seats are the first of many,” McFarland says. “We’re already talking about the next venture.”
