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Open for business
Global Aeronautica plant opens for business in North Charleston
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
The finishing touches at the massive Global Aeronautica facility in North Charleston were still days away from completion, but Charles “Newt” Newton already wore the expression of a kid in a candy store.
Despite his more than 40 years of experience in building passenger airliners—he was among the engineers who helped kick-start Boeing’s 747 program way back in 1966—having a major hand in building the 787 Dreamliner, an aircraft that will ferry passengers well into the 21st century, obviously thrilled him.
“I’m a lot older than I look,” he said at one point as he described the facility being celebrated with a ribbon cutting on Dec. 5. “But I love this business. It doesn’t get any better than seeing something that started out as a concept, and this land, essentially as a blank slate, finally coming to fruition.”
It was only six months ago when Newton, then an employee of Dallas-based Vought Aircraft Industries, was being applauded for his role in the creation of the company’s 342,000-square-foot building on some 240 acres adjacent to Charleston International Airport.
It was at that occasion, a ribbon-cutting for that facility attended by a host of state and local dignitaries including Gov. Mark Sanford, that it was also announced that Newton’s work was far from over. He’d been asked to become vice president of Global Aeronautica and set up shop across the new parking lot.
While Vought Aircraft Industries’ legacy extends back to the first production of military aircraft in the United States, Global Aeronautica is a new joint venture between Vought and Italy’s Alenia Aeronautica, specifically created for the 787 project.
As much as any of the brick and mortar at the site, Newton has become a cornerstone of the $560 million industrial complex that will build and assemble major fuselage sections for the Boeing Co.’s new 787 Dreamliner.
“It’s nice to be wanted,” Newton said with his characteristic enthusiasm. “Now, instead of dealing with construction issues and government building regulations and the like, I’ll be overseeing everything we’ll do here that’ll go into this aircraft.”
Distinct production roles
Given all the talk in recent months about how the Vought facility will be the linchpin of a hoped-for aeronautic cluster in the Lowcountry, the activity that will occur on the huge industrial campus is still something of an enigma to the general public.
“We’ve received a very warm response from the general public, but I think it is hard for the public to differentiate between the buildings and what the respective roles of the two distinct companies will be,” said Randy Smith, a 26-year veteran of Vought who became Global Aeronautica’s chief operating officer last month.
“While the Vought Aircraft Industries plant will create high-tech composite fuselage parts, our workers are going to be charged with a far different task,” Smith said. “Our job is to complete structural joins between what’s created at Vought and at other plants across the globe, to install and validate the systems, and to apply finishes to 60 percent of the fuselage.”
“Basically it’s a question of creating the fuselage in two distinct steps,” Newton said. “Over at the Vought building, they’re going to create two large components of the aft fuselage of the 787 and then fully integrate the wiring and other components that need to be in it.”
Global Aeronautica’s mission, he said, is to join those sections to other parts of the fuselage being created at Alenia Aeronautica in Italy, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Fuji Heavy Industries of Japan and by Boeing itself in Winnipeg, Canada, and prepare the units for shipment and final assembly at Boeing’s plant in Everett, Wash.
Boeing is currently conducting flight tests on a new large cargo freighter—a dramatically retrofitted 747—that will ferry all these components to and from Charleston International Airport. Newton is currently overseeing the construction of a secured taxiway to allow easy access between the facility and the airport.
Charlestonians will likely see two flights a day by the unusual freighter once the plant is operating on all cylinders, he said.
The collaborative process is nothing new in Europe, where companies have built aircraft this way for years, but it is new to Vought, Smith said.
“What I expect to see, based on the success so far of the 787 program, is for this kind of collaboration to become far more common in the United States,” he said.
But the collaboration isn’t the only thing that’s unique about what will go on at Global Aeronautica’s 334,000-square-foot facility. Newton said the assembly process itself will be something that’s truly out of this world.
“It’s a fairly unique assembly process. We’re relying on high tech optics to align things and using advanced electronics to put them together,” Newton said. “It’s actually technology developed by NASA during the Apollo program to dock the command and lunar modules.
“It’s a tremendously exacting process. (It is) a far cry from the way we used to build passenger liners, banging pieces into place.”
Average salary: $50,000
Newton said once production begins in January, it will likely take a total of 70 working days to complete work on the first fuselage leaving the facility.
“Once we really get going, at what we call ‘rate production,’ that time will be cut back to 18 to 20 days.”
Initially, the Global Aeronautica facility will strive to assemble two fuselages at a time, although there’s room enough to do three at a time once the facility is fully staffed. By that point, total employment on the site, counting both Vought and Global Aeronautica personnel, will be 745.
Like Vought, Global Aeronautica is relying on Trident Technical College to provide workplace-specific training in assembly, installation and system validation.
The plant initially received nearly 650 applications after placing its first help-wanted ads, and that number was winnowed down to 100 individuals who were given a preliminary screening test, Smith said.
Of those, 40 people where chosen to take the initial training class. Subsequent calls for applicants netted the company another 60 potential employees, who are now taking training.
The average salary of those working at the plant will be about $50,000, Newton said.
“Now that doesn’t mean that a janitor is going to be making that much, but that the average, including everyone who works here, will be that high.”
Newton said after developing his work force, the next biggest challenge has been building up a supply base here.
“We chose Charleston as the site of these plants for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the fact there was a large, undeveloped parcel of land here directly adjacent to an airport,” Newton said. “One thing Charleston doesn’t have is an extensive history in the aeronautic field.
“As a result, we’ve had to ask the local machine shops that want to work with us to get process requirement certifications, something they’ve really stepped up to the plate on.”
Suppliers to follow?
Newton also said that a number of Global Aeronautica’s “next tier” suppliers are actively talking about locating facilities here. But in making that statement, he also attempted to manage expectations.
“This industry doesn’t move as fast as a lot of people think it does,” Newton said. “There’s a lot of complexity involved in these decisions and remember, (the 787) is a long-term project.
“Look at the 747. I started on that project 40 years ago and its still in production. So while some suppliers might eventually gravitate here, it won’t be tomorrow. Our industry’s timetables just don’t work that way. In fact, if the first one didn’t build a facility here for another eight years, we’d still think they made the move early in the game.”
One very big factor for that timeline is one that people don’t readily apply to facilities such as those built by Global Aeronautica and Vought: While they are part of existing corporate structures, they’re also, in the truest sense, startups.
“People might be surprised to hear me say this, but it’s going to be a while before we have a sense that this facility is going to have some traction,” Newton said. “We won’t really know that for two or three years, after Boeing delivers its first 787 and it becomes a revenue generator for the customer.
“Remember, we’re very early in the process of creating an entirely new aircraft. For all the activity that you’ve seen, the Federal Aviation Administration has yet to certify it. I liken where we’re at right now to a sink that’s been stopped up. It’s when you remove the plug, in this case that’s FAA approval, that things really start moving.”
Given that the production process has yet to begin, it’s still too early to say what else might be built on the unused acreage next to the two giant facilities, Newton said.
“There’s been some talk of perhaps putting up a paint building, but beyond that, the use of the rest of the site is still to be determined,” he said.
“Basically, we’re waiting to see how things develop,” Smith said. “A lot depends on what happens in regards to orders and what happens with Airbus and how it resolves its problems related to its new A380. There are a lot of variables and in some respects we’re into unknown territory, since Boeing 787 has sold faster than any other passenger plane.”
“We didn’t have 200 orders the day production started on the 747,” Newton said. “Boeing already has 455 for the Dreamliner. That’s incredible. It really is.”
Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.
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