Hello everyone!

It’s time for an update from my abroad placement in Bristol, UK.

I’m at one of GKNs two manufacturing sites in Bristol, in addition to these two sites GKN also have a brand new Global technology center. The site where I’m at is part of the Civil Airframe business line and they manufacture products to the wings of the aircraft, unlike the site in Trollhättan which manufactures parts to the engine. The main products that’s produced here are Fixed Trailing Edge (FTE) to the Airbus A350 aircraft which is a long distance aircraft with a wide aisle. If you would travel from London to New York it’s likely that you will get the honor to board this aircraft.

The FTE are made out of carbon using Advanced Fibre Placement, it’s over 30 meters long and is made out of 3 shorter spars which are automatically assembled to the full FTE. The assembly process itself is the most complex automated large scale assembly undertaken by GKN. The total weight of the entire FTE is 1800 kg which corresponds to about 7% of the wings weight and it supports 10x its own weight. It runs from the fuselage all the way to the end of the wing. Below is a picture of the assembled FTE and a drawing to show where on the wing it’s placed. As I mentioned, the FTE carries a lot of weight but it has other functionalities as well. For example it’s used for attaching the landing gear onto the wing.

What about living in Bristol? Bristol is located on the west coast of England, about a 2 hour drive from London. It even has its own airport, which is very convenient. I flew to Paris a few weeks ago with a direct flight to Charles de Gauelle, and it took just about 1 hour. The city is filled with great pubs and restaurants and there’s also a lot of shopping and plenty of parks and green areas. The pictures below is from one of the biggest parks in town and a panorama view of the town from above.

So, Bristol is close to London but I’m even happier about the fact that it’s close to Wales. If you are into old castles, fortresses, cathedrals etc. then Wales is the place to be. It has more castles than any other area in Europe (might have found a somewhat biased source for that but anyways). Apart from the castles the countryside in Wales is absolutely beautiful. I tried to find a few pictures to show you what it looks like but as you know, it’s never the same in a picture as it is in reality. All pictures are from Wales, the top left one is from Little Haven on the southwest coast, top right is the St.Davids Cathedral in St.Davids. Bottom left is from Conwy castle on the north coast and bottom right is from Brecon Beacons National Park.

That was all from me, take care!

/Emma