Cranfield Aerospace

Flight Services: Maintenance, Design, Environmental Testing and Certification

Company Profile

• CASPA - Cranfield Aerospace Special Purpose Aircraft

  With CASPA, Cranfield Aerospace offers a complete turnkey solution to your flight service requirements. The Cessna 421C aircraft has been modified by CAe to include an adaptable nose, under-belly attachment locations and under-slung wing mounts.

  As such, CASPA is highly reconfigurable and offers the ultimate flexibility from simple observer flights, through to modification programmes to incorporate complex new sensors and systems.

  CASPA is adaptable to:

  • Assist formal equipment certification
  • Enable modifications for flight services, e.g. flight calibration services
  • Provide a surrogate aircraft for role modelling
  • Allow systems and equipment prototyping and testing

  As an EASA approved organisation and with our own test pilots in-house, we are able to offer a complete service from requirements analysis, through modification, flight trials and data reduction. You choose how much of the process you need and how much you want to be involved.

  With our own Part 145 and Part M maintenance and flight test facilities, we can ensure that CASPA is available when you need it, on budget, on time.

  

• Maintenance, Manufacture and Design

  Cranfield Aerospace is an EASA and MOD DAOS approved organisation offering the capabilities to provide design services, aircraft maintenance, modification and conversion for a range of aircraft types for both civil and military applications.

  CAe’s main areas of maintenance and manufacture activity include:-

  • Scheduled and un-scheduled maintenance
  • Aircraft repair schemes
  • Manufacture and installation of bespoke modifications (both minor and major) and equipment
  • Ongoing support

  CAe’s Maintenance and Manufacture activities are based in Hangar 2 at Cranfield Airport, which is managed by our sister company Cranfield Airport Limited. Cranfield Airport is equipped with the latest navigation and safety technology and is able to offer a full range of aviation facilities for charter, commercial, private and training purposes.

  Cranfield Aerospace has the capability to offer the following approvals and services:

  • Parts procurement
  • Provision of hangar services including oxygen/nitrogen top ups, ground power and aircraft towing
  • Full avionic & instrument capability with workshops
  • General Aviation and Corporate Aircraft Maintenance, Modification, Repair and Overhaul
  • Rockwell Collins approved dealership services
  • Licensed to work on the following aircraft types:

  1. Jetstream 31/32
  2. Cessna 400 series
  3. Piper Twin
  4. SA Beagle B.121 series
  5. SA Bulldog 120 series

  

• Structural Dynamics, Airworthiness and Certification

  Cranfield Aerospace’s (CAe) Safety and Suitability Technologies (SST) group has over 40 years experience in undertaking environmental trials to prove installations and investigate dynamic structural performance of new systems and equipment in the air, on land and at sea.

  SST’s highly trained team use specialised data gathering equipment and analysis software, some of which was specifically developed by SST under contract with the MoD, to monitor, record and analyse the full vibration, temperature and noise environments of any desired aircraft or vehicle. With our vast experience in working on military platforms, CAe is equally set up to provide our expertise for virtually any civilian aircraft structure/equipment modification or newly incorporated system.

  Other services we provide include:

  • Form 100A and Form 100C certificates of design
  • Validation and verification programmes
  • Production of Service Bulletins (SBs) and STCs (Supplementary Type Certificates)
  • Compliance support for mandatory modifications
  • New airborne concept development
  • Collocated consultancy support
  • Airworthiness services
  

• Unmanned Air Systems

  With a reputation for being a UK market leader in Unmanned Air Systems, Cranfield Aerospace can call upon a wealth of knowledge and experience to provide innovative solutions to your UAS needs.

  Over recent years, CAe has worked on numerous military and civilian projects including research work for UK MoD and Boeing’s Research and Technology programme. Boeing’s X-48B is an 8.5% scaled demonstrator with over 80 successful flights.

  CAe’s own UAS solutions can be customised to meet any customer needs and can include proven capabilities such as variable payload capacities, VTOL, overhead surveillance, autonomous control and equipment testing/clearance.