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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Bristol to make jet fighter tail parts

By: Martin Cash

19/06/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

BRISTOL Aerospace has won an $11-million contract to produce the horizontal tail components for the latest U.S. fighter jet, the Joint Strike Fighter.It is the first of many production contracts Bristol expects to be awarded as the new F-35 fighter, as the JSF is being called, progresses into larger production runs. The jets will end up costing a total of about $300 billion when the whole program is complete.

Bristol officials have said employment may increase by as many as 100 people as the F-35 contract awards grow.

Don Boitson, general manager of Bristol and vice-president of its parent company, Magellan Aerospace, said this is the initial contract and there will be more in the works.

"Absolutely we expect more to come," he said Thursday. "These are the detail parts contracts. The assembly contracts will be next."

This specific part will be for one of three versions of the F-35. The contract is for two years of production, but Boitson said he expects Bristol to continue to produce the horizontal tail components for the full run.

More than 3,000 of the fighter jets have already been spoken for by the U.S. military and production rates are expected to increase up to 150 to 200 a year in five or six years.

Bristol has been working on a $120-million upgrade to its Winnipeg plant to prepare for the F-35 work for the last couple of years. It recently secured a $20-million loan from the provincial government that had been preceded by a $42-million loan from the federal government.

Bristol is a specialty composite parts manufacturer, In addition to the horizontal tail components, it has also made some wing structure parts for the initial test versions of the fighter.

Also Thursday, another Magellan Aerospace company, Chicopee Manufacturing in Kitchener, Ont., received a $60-million contract to produce wing tie bars for the leading edge flap installation and aft engine thrust mounts for the F-35.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 19, 2009 B4

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