Company News Brief - 3/2004

Welcome to the third edition of Saab Aerostructures Company News Brief

Since the last edition the Testing expo in Hamburg has taken place with a lot of interesting meetings. In parallel major achievements has been done in our preparations for assembly start on the NH90 forward fuselage. Last week a major Aerospace event took place in Toulouse – the inauguration of the A380 final assembly line. The event attracted many of us in the business and a lot of familiar faces were recognized among the attendants.

This edition includes reports from NH90 forward fuselage achievements and the start of assembly for the South African and Hungarian Gripen fighters. Last but not least a report on ADFAST, a program within the European 5th Framework research programs that just have been concluded. The achievements in this program will be valuable in the years to come for everybody involved.

As summer is approaching Farnborough is coming closer. The next issue of Company News Brief will be dedicated to this event and we look forward to see you there in July.

Best Regards,

Pontus Kallén

Automated assembly in the future

During a period of three years the EU-project ADFAST, Automation for Drilling, Fastening, Assembly, System Integration and Tooling, has been in progress. This is a development project, in part financed by the EU. The project has had ten partners and Saab Aerostructures has been one of them.

Gripen production has started for South Africa and Hungary

Last October, the production start of 28 South African and 14 Hungarian Gripen aircraft began. Saab Aerostructures has the responsibility for the aircraft assembly.

NH90 forward fuselage in production

The assembly of the first forward fuselage for the NH90 Helicopter started the 21st of April, and a week later it was bonded in a specially designed oven. This was the start for Saab Aerostructures production of a total of 270 forward fuselages.