What a great day everyone had at this wonderful facility
We were treated to a look around the facility by the MD and and it took me back.
The canteen was very busy as we all collected our free burgers ….and ice creams could be had all day from the (free) van ( some had more than others – no names here!).
As the sun was blazing all day everyone was in a good mood.
Collins certainly pushed the boat out for their families with bouncy castles and even live snakes and Llamas; the latter like carrots and there was a plentiful supply for the kids of any age to feed them.
Collins is licensed by the CAA as repair agency for aero engine components such as shrouds, intakes and so forth for transport aircraft, largely the airline ‘heavies’.
They don’t manufacture kit, but given the complexity of modern aircraft which use copious honeycombed structure, they have to be able to identify any damage and rectify it. So they have their own design authority for repairs and state of the art non-destructive test facilities to identify what needs to be repaired. Given the size of some of the aero engine intake cowls that they deal with, they also have a couple of blooming great pressure chambers which are used to cure carbon fibre panels. The tooling to support that and all of their other activities would make anyone slaver!
Folks were particularly taken by the 3D printing machine busy making a smaller version of R2D2. It does make other things!
Of course the Company has an eye on the future and they recover re-useable components from scrapped aircraft to be ready for when the airline industry expands again.
It is big business, just about every repair costs £KKK and that’s the cheap ones.
The MD although an avid motorcycle enthusiast, was very pleased to see us and sends his thanks to the folks that came along; we had a fantastic turn out of cars.
Francis
Biggar
A few of our members were at the Biggar Show on the Sunday and reported that (as always) it was a great day out with plenty to see and do.
The weather was also with us which made for an enjoyable event.
George has provided a few photos of the day which you can see below:
