Aerobloggen

As you might remember, I mentioned in a previous blog post that my grandfather’s brother, Jan Ingemar Holmquist, flew for the Swedish Air Force during the cold war. Unfortunately, 1952 on December 11^th he collided with another airplane during an exercise flight with a Vampire J28. Both planes involved in the collision plunged into the ground. So how did it actually go for the two pilots? What happened that day?

Thanks to Hans Brandt, previous fighter pilot at F7 Såtenäs, and Göran Jacobsson, expert on Swedish air force history, I have got my hands on the commission report.
So, let’s make a trip back to 1952, December 11^th, a day that in many ways came to reflect the harsh conditions and coldness of the ongoing war. The following story is a reconstruction of the events as expressed in the commission report dated December 13^th, 1953.

In the early Cold War, Sweden began sending out its young pilots on increasingly risky and advanced low-flying exercises. This was considered necessary as the threat from foreign powers felt significant at the time. Sweden was caught in the middle of a war characterized by distrust and tensions between the communist East and the capitalist West. As the preparations for a potential invasion increased, more and more Swedish pilots payed with their lives.
The pride and greed that grew forth with soldiers in service often overthrew the fear and concern that naturally arise from conflicts. These attributes could especially be found in pilots. They were often brave, filled with honor and they rarely backed away from challenges. According to flight physician E. Nyström, the two Swedish pilots, Jan Holmquist and Ingvar Lindeberg fulfilled these attributes despite of their low ages. According to evaluations they often showed both courage, will and determination during flight sessions.

It was a chilly day, the 11^th of December 1952 at the royal Airforce F8 just outside of Stockholm. It was soon time for Holmquist and Lindeberg to practice flying. Both looked forward to getting up in the air again. Holmquist, 21 years old had around 200 flight hours, and Lindeberg with his 20 years came close with his 192 h. The day was clear and cold, the visibility under the clouds was around 8 km, and over the clouds the visibility was very good at around 50 kilometers. The wind blew cold with its 8-10 meters per second. It was a good day to practice flying and both Holmquist and Lindeberg had flown under significantly worse conditions.
They got ready and boarded the two planes of the model Vampire J28. They were both well-off as they moved out to the runway. The control tower gave them the green light to start their exercise flight and one after each other, they lifted, unaware of the fact that neither of the two aircrafts would ever return home again.

Holmquist could feel how the G force pushed him down while he aimed for the clouds. A few minutes into the flight, the two pilots were stable at an altitude of about 2500 metres in marsch-formation, Holmquist just before Lindeberg.The engine of the type RM1A gave both the aircraft a maximum speed of approximately 700 km/h.

The air traffic management had closely monitored the development within the European military aircraft industry, and in 1944 it was clear that the propeller era was over. In the autumn of 1945, a project named “JxR” was started, which would later result in the SAAB J29 Tunnan aircraft. During the same time Vampire aircrafts were imported from the British company “de Havilland” to enable pilot-training, and to bridge a stable transition to the new jet age. Sweden and British RAF (Royal Air Force) thus became among the first air force in the world to fly the Vampire aircrafts. The aircraft later received the Swedish name J28, and the earlier versions, J28A, were to be used mainly for pilot training.

Holmquist turned left with a 30 degree baking and Lindeberg suddenly ended up slightly behind Holmquist, thus pulling on gas to keep the distance constant. In the same moment, he was dazzled by the sun, of which he released the gas and shaded the sun with his left hand. Suddenly, Holmquist’s aircraft approached Lindeberg’s very quickly and Lindberg took down his arm and tried to slow down, but it was too late. The two aircrafts collided. At the moment of collision, the right tail of Lindeberg’s aircraft was torn off when hitting Holmquist’s aircraft, and as a result Lindeberg’s aircraft lost all its ability to stay airborne. The severely battered aircraft did no longer respond to rudder maneuvers. Lindeberg therefore took the very fast decision to jump. He untapped himself from the aircraft, opened the hatch and got sucked out of the airplane as a result of the high velocity. The spite of being hit in the face by his harness and the fact that he hit his shoulder in the hatch opening, he managed to stay conscious enough to pull out his parachute.

Further up in the sky, Holmquist had felt the collision underneath his airplane, and had in the same moment seen Lindeberg’s aircraft plunge uncontrollable into the clouds. At about 600 km/h Holmquist went down to an altitude of 750 meters. The rudder bounced from side to side and his aircraft started to spin out of control. The instruments were no longer readable. Holmquist tried his best to control the airplane, but failed. There was only one thing left to do, to leave the aircraft. He loosened himself from his harness, uncoupled his oxygen and radio, loosened the hatch and tried to climb out. Unfortunately, he was thrown back in the aircraft, giving him the impression that his parachute was stuck. He eventually put both his hands behind the parachute and got out. In the next second he pulled out his parachute. At the moment of release, Holmquist was so close to the ground that he did not feel the difference between the trigger shock from the parachute and hitting the ground. In other words, he had pulled out the parachute just in time.

A few kilometers from there Lindeberg had landed safely and moved to a nearby farm to contact F8. Just as Lindeberg, Holmquist managed without any injuries.
The story ended happily as both pilots survived. Jan is today 85 years old and he finished his career as a commercial pilot for SAS. Ingvar Lindeberg is also alive today at age of 84. Short after the accident Jan decided to propose to his girlfriend, Ann-Charlott, and you might guess what she answered. Jan Ingemar Holmquist and Ann-Charlott Holmquist is still married today.

A cold day with a sunny end!

 

Dear blog readers, as you already know the young graduate group has a yearly assignment which this time is about raising the awareness about engineering among adolescents and inspire more to choose similar educations and career paths as ourselves. As a part of this project, me, Niclas and David (who is temporarily back home in Sweden) today met a large part of Trollhättans eight graders at the town’s own Innovatum Science Center. Together with people from completely different backgrounds and businesses, such as firefighters, chefs and hotel personnel, we told stories about the different routes and opportunities that awaits the youths after the approaching high school. It was not the easiest task to summarize the work of a whole profession society in five minutes and also explaining the path to get where we are today. What is it actually that our profession is all about? Answering e-mails, attending meetings and having coffee breaks where the common tasks we identified. I hope we succeeded in encouraging the students to challenge themselves and to test out new and exciting fields of working!

David, Andreas and Niclas representing GKN and engineering at the inspiration day at Innovatum Science Center. (Yesterday Joel & Emelie represented us, and next Tuesday it is time for Malin & Joakim.)

The departure to Shanghai is approaching! Visa problems and changes in the Chinese foreign employee policy have made the departure delayed compared to what was originally intended. I should actually have left last Saturday. Now, I estimate that it is approximately a month to go before I can start my next placement. In the moment of writing this blog post, I’m sitting in the waiting room at the hospital in Trollhättan, NÄL, after just having undergone a chest X-ray for the sake of the work visa application process. The documents and the check-ups needed to work in China are many, but the thought of how cool and interesting it will be to work in the automotive industry in Shanghai makes me endure all of it with joy! Given that it is my first work experience in the automotive industry, I have a lot to learn. I have recently found out that I will be working together with the procurement team from GKN Driveline Köping (KOP) when I’m at the IPO office (International Purchasing Office) in Shanghai. My future boss in China thought it a good idea to send me on a study visit to KOP to learn about GKN Driveline in general and KOP and their products in particular.

GKN Driveline can be divided into two product divisions. In one of the product divisions CVJs (constant velocity joints), prop shafts and drive shafts are being manufactured. Within GKN this is done eg in Birmingham, UK. A CVJ enables the drive shaft to transmit power through a variable angle at a constant rotational speed without significant increases in friction.

In the second product division AWD (all wheel drive) is manufactured. Within GKN this is done Köping, SE and in Newington, US. The PTU (the lump in the back) and FDU (the lump up front) is what constitutes the four-wheel drive. If the car from the beginning is a rear wheel drive the power needs to be transferred to the front wheels via a gearbox. In that case a third lump is needed on the prop shaft.

KOP manufactures and assembles all-wheel drive systems. The parts needed for the four-wheel drive that are not manufactured on site are purchased before assembly. At KOP aluminum housings, pinions, crown wheels and shafts are being machined. The expertise lies in the production of hypoid gears. The cogs of the hypoid gears are helically shaped (see picture) and the hypoid gears can transfer force at almost any angle and are useful in torque-demanding applications.

One thing that is really hot on the market right now is growing fast is the AWD Disconnect system. AWD Disconnect is an intelligent system which means that the all-wheel drive can be switched off when it is not needed, which, during normal driving, is the case most of the time. The intelligent AWD system reacts to the driving conditions by disconnecting the major, rotating drive line components, which reduces fuel consumption. When the AWD system is needed the disconnected parts are activated in under 300 milliseconds.

The site in Köping, with around 1,000 employees, impressed me. First of all it looked really nice! They’re making a major facelift at the factory. The head office was renovated inside and out, built new offices are being built in the workshop and many machines are being upgraded and/or replaced. It really is a site that inspires and the huge investments being made bring a feeling of a bright future.

As always, when I visit a driveline site, I am struck by the huge differences compared to the aviation industry. Everything is moving so much faster! Products flow past in huge volumes and high speeds and the automated robotic arms move constantly. Small, unmanned robots that you give way to transfer goods around in the factory. KOP has an annual capacity of hypoid gears of just over one million. At GKN Aerospace in Trollhättan, we have one product with a lead time of about 10 months. It is natural that there is a big difference in the speed between the production of the aerospace and automotive industries! In order to deliver the large volumes of products that the automotive industry does a LEAN mindset that is fully incorporated into the business is required. This is also noticed in Köping where the entire plant is built according to how products flow.

KOP is clearly an impressive place and I look forward to working with them in the future!

With large ear protections and in shining reflection vests, we slowly walked over the airfield, surrounded by a shining sun and a clear blue sky. The weather gave us a liberating sensation, a much appreciated feeling that can only be experienced on a hot summer day, or at the best, an early spring day like this. Sounds from far distant aircraft engines could be heard, and the wind blew cold across the airfield.

F7 in Såtenäs is a vast and magnificent airfield situated right at the feet of Vänern. Guided by two veteran pilots, Håkan Brandt and Dag Kjellberg who have had several flight hours with airplanes such as the legendary Viggen airplane, we waited for three incoming JAS-aircrafts.
F7 is one of four remaining Swedish Air Force squadrons (F7 Skaraborg, F17 Blekinge, F21 Norrbotten and LSS Air Combat School). Air force military units today focus on both national and international operations, and should therefore be prepared to participate in military operations abroad with UN consensus. The Air force is divided into several ground management units and air units, and one does not work without the other. Operators and flight engineers play an equally important part as the pilots themselves.

From southeast, in something called an “echelon formation” three JAS-aircrafts come flying in towards the airfield. One after another, at a safe distance from each other, they started a circular movement in towards the runway. A few hundred meters down, a Hercules aircraft was about to lift, which together with the JAS-aircrafts and the wonderful weather composed a magnificent scenery. When the aircrafts had landed and docked with their different ground-stations, we followed along the personnel performing the routine inspections. The smell of hot RM12, oil and kerosene was imminent.

The tour of the area continued and after a well-placed lunch we tested the flight-simulators. As for us trainees, we will soon have about half an hour each in different JAS-simulators, both from the ones at Linköping Air Force Museum and at SAAB, and to be fairly honest, we will soon be able to fly a JAS gripen ourselves. The tour ended with a brief introduction to the Swedish Air Force history, and we had the pleasure to take a closer look on airplanes such as Viggen, Draken and Tunnan. Both Håkan and Dag shared some of their memories and highlights from their careers, which was amusing I tell you. For those of you who are interested, in the image below is brief summary of the Swedish Air Force history.

 

My grandfather’s brother, Jan Ingemar Holmquist was a fighter pilot in the 50s, at the brink of the Cold War. The story goes that he during a flight training session with a Vampire J28 in 1952, December 11, 21 years old, collided with another airplane. As a result, both planes involved crashed. Thanks to Hans Brandt, I received access to the report from the commission of inquiry. So, in the next post you’ll find out more about what really happened on that cold winter day in 1952, and what happened to the two pilots. See you later! 🙂

Hello again

First of all, don’t miss the addition of another one of our American colleagues’ presentations, namely Josh Bruggeman. You can find his presentation via the following link

During the last week, the assessment days for the new graduates took place on Wednesday and Thursday. We had two full days when the new candidates were allowed to visit us at the company, meet one another and undergo some different tests and exercises. It will be incredibly exciting to see who will be the new colleagues and also be a member of the next year’s set up of graduates. On Wednesday we received eminent visit when David came to participate in the assessment. Some say that it was his boundless interest in the new candidates that drove him to fly home for the day to participate in this event, while others say that it was due to a skiing holiday with the family, we will probably never know.

Another event that have shaped a lot of the last two weeks are the Training Days, and regular readers are probably familiar with the concept that this is an event where the employees of the company are able to join exciting courses to develop and learn new things. I have personally tried to go to several of the courses, mostly focused on my interest areas of quality and continuous improvement. A highlight in my opinion was a robustness course where my former tutor and mentor Peter Hammersberg participated and lectured. Personally, I thought Peter’s thoughts were very interesting and particularly one example brightened up a little extra. Peter explained a lot about the difference between symptoms and root causes when analyzing problems in our processes. One idea that is worth to revisit was the example where you can have fantastic follow up on a process, and excellent accuracy to monitor the outcome of the process for critical parameters. However, this can be completely separated from the understanding of the process underlying variation, that is, just because you have a good monitoring of a process does not necessary mean that the process is stable. In conclusion, it is the understanding of the process underlying variation and behavior that is the key to successful improvement.

This was all for this time!

Hello readers,

This will probably be my last blog post of this placement here in Sweden, and so in this post I want to reflect a little on my placement here. What have my greatest challenges been in this placement, and what have I learnt?

My greatest challenge here has been to learn a large amount of technical information in a very short period of time. During this placement I’ve had to learn:

• How to write (or at least read and understand) scripts written in Python, Matlab, Perl, Batch and Bash programming languages
• The fundamentals of CFD and how to use CFX to analyse turbines
• Automating design analysis using multi objective design optimization software like ModeFrontier and OptiSLang
• Some fundamental physics and aerodynamics relating to turbines

with little to no training and by learning on the job. This has felt overwhelming at times but I think that the ability to remain calm and learn quickly in unfamiliar territory is a very useful skill to develop. I have learnt that the way to overcome these challenges is to remain calm and to believe in your ability, even when the knowledge gap seems huge. It is also important to identify when to seek help, and who the key people are that can provide that help.

Another challenge in this placement has been to define and truly understand the scope of some of my objectives. A previous manager and mentor once told me:

“The hardest part of solving any problem in engineering, is in defining the problem accurately.”

Constantly ask yourself: what are we trying to achieve? Is this project or objective defined in a way that has a clear goal? It’s amazing how often we find ourselves half way through a project only to reflect that the way that we initially defined the problem was too vague, or was incorrect, or was based on the wrong information, or was misunderstood by some of the people involved.

I have learnt that the solution to this problem is communication. I am still working on improving in this area, but I have made good progress by constantly listening and responding to my project customer. If you (or even they) have not accurately defined the problem, you will never be able to find a satisfactory solution. Don’t be afraid to redefine a problem in a better way even halfway through a project – it is not “going back to the start”, its real progress that will lead to a better outcome.

I hope that my experience with these challenges and the learning that has come from them is useful to you. I am looking forward to a whole host of new challenges in my next placement, and trying to figure out how to overcome those too!

As a final note, I want to say thank you to everyone here in Trollhättan that has made me feel so welcome over the last 6 months. It has been a great pleasure for me to work with you all and I will truly be sad to leave.

Neil Irwin

It`s about time for me to post something… So here I go!

What have happened since last then? I`m up and running with my project. I have great support from my mangers and the organisation. It`s a thrill going to work in the morning. Did I describe my project? Well here is a short summary;

As described from the study-visit post by the rest of the graduates we make wings and parts related to the wing structure here in Filton. This business was bought from Airbus in 2009 which makes the connection to Airbus very strong. We are still on the same premises and shares lunch canteen and parking. As many of the programs at Airbus (A320, A330, A380) starting to get more mature it requires more service and repairs. As a result there is a need for Spare parts going to Airbus (Hamburg and Broughton). My project is then to find these parts and evaluate GKNs possibilities to better and more sufficient supply them. So my placement requires a good connection with Airbus as well as internal with our Value Streams, Procurement, Finance etc.

Even if I`m not starting my next placement until September I have already started to look for options. It still surprises me how well received the graduates are within the organisation. In the same way as the Graduates in Sweden are meeting Mike McCann at Engine System the Structures management team here are very supportive for me here. Hopefully it also allows me to point out my next step/placement. The last days I have started thinking more and more about going to Asia. A good experience even if I don`t see myself living in Asia for any longer time in life. But I will try to summarize my graduate time, or more how to handle it, in a couple of steps following this post.

Reflections from England during the last week:

• Article 50 is trigged and the Brexit process are up and running.
• Sadly London is (once again) the target for a terror attack.
• Spring has started and the number of days with rain has now been reduced a bit.
• Zara Larsson is the only artist capable of competing with Ed Sheeran’s 16 tracks on BBC Radio 1. Go Sweden!!

Regards,

David

Here is a brief summary of our visit to GKN Filton and GKN Western Approach. Filton is located not far from Bristol, and is also David’s nest during his current rotation abroad.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, GKN Filton’s main focus is on the moounting of wing structures for a number of customers such as Airbus, Dassault and Lockheed Martin. There is also a center for additive manufacturing with a focus on powder-bed technology, an emerging technology in which fine metal powder is sprinkled over a surface, layer upon layer, and melted using a laser or electron beam energy source. GKN Filton employs around 2000 of GKN Aerospace’s 17,000 employees. There, the mounting of the leading edge of the wing near the fuselage for aircrafts such as the Airbus A350 XWB is performed, as well as for the trailing edge near the tip of the wings for the Airbus A320. Worth noting is that the Airbus A350 is the first Airbus aircraft with both the fuselage and wing structures made of composite materials.
Something that I found really hard to believe until I saw it is that the airplane wing closest to the fuselage is so thick that one could almost stand upright and still be able to fit inside the wing. This is at least true for the bigger aircrafts such as the Airbus A350 XWB.

The wing spar of modern aircrafts is made of composite materials, and for those of you who are not quite familiar with what composite material actually is, I will briefly update you. Composite materials are basically materials formed by combining different materials with different properties, such as thermoplastics and carbon fiber. This combination leads to very high strength to weight ratio, and is today done by automated processes such as Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) and the Automated Tape Laying (ATL).

To close the productions cycle, we went from Filton to Western Approach in the afternoon the same day. There the spar of the two wing parts is manufactured in several advanced manufacturing stages. The filament winding machines in Western Approach weaved together, like a giant spider, the different parts of the wing structure from small skeins of threads, which certainly was an impressive sight. The manufacturing environment in Western Approach is extremely clean, and air filters is used to filter out particles in order not to jeopardize the quality. We almost looked like a bunch of medical students when we walked around in our white coats and hairnets. The site also hosted some gigantic vacuum ovens and washing machines, large enough to fit one or more student apartments.

In short, a very interesting visit both to the GKN site in Filton, and to Western Approach. It feels good knowing that GKN is in the process of develop and manufacture future products made of high-performance lightweight materials for more efficient, more reliable and more environmentally friendly aircrafts.

 

Greetings readers!

This week is the third week of our third departments as trainees. I am now stationed at the commercial military department. When I mention this to friends it is common for them to think I’m working with commercials, which is not the case. At the commercial department we work with business, customer relations, contracts, strategy and so on.

The assignment I have been given is a piece of the puzzle for ground work of the long term strategy of the company. So far it’s been very interesting. It took me a while before I understood what it was I was actually supposed to do. Then it took me a while more before I received the necessary materials to start working on it. Now I’ve started, and I already have some (very) preliminary results to show, which the management found very interesting. So even if I can’t tell you much more at the moment it feels like I’m on the right track and it feels good to have gotten started in this new department.

As a relatively new employee at this company I feel it’s hard to determine what I’m allowed to speak about, especially when working in the military parts of the organization. This is why the answers to questions about what I do at work (and this blog post) sometimes becomes quite cryptic. I hope this gets better with time and that I will have a better understanding about what I’m allowed to say and not. For now I’ll have to just use cryptic answers or not answer at all. The main thing to take away is anyway that the new department feels good and it feels like I’m doing something useful with my time here so far.

Over and out,

Joakim Åhman

Ps Today we trainees has been on a visit to Skaraborgs Flygflottilj (Swedish air force base), F7. Very exciting! Extra exciting for me I think, as my home department is within the military organization here at GKN. There will be a blog entry about this tomorrow or early next week. ds

Just as Niclas briefly mentioned in the previous post, we have recently met Mike McCann for an exciting conversation that certainly can be said to have given us some inspiration from above!

Mike McCann is our CEO of GKN Aerospace Engine Systems, i.e. the twelve sites within GKN Aerospace engaged in aircraft engine components and for which Trollhättan hosts the headquarters. Mike is a very much experienced professional within in the aerospace business, and after having graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, he has worked in the industry for over 30 years. In 2009 Mike joined GKN Aerospace, and in November 2012, after the acquisition of Volvo Aero, he began the work in his current position. Mike is a native of Dallas, USA where he commutes between his private home and the many the sites under his authority. Periodically, he works at the site here in Trollhättan, and during these visits he has made it plenty of time to meet us young graduates.

The meeting this Monday was in fact not the first time we conversed with Mike McCann. Already at Mike’s last visit to Trollhättan in late February a one and-a-half-hour meeting was scheduled with the well-spoken American. Even though he at this occasion went over the planned time with more than one full hour, and that the enthusiastic stories only was stopped by his secretary, patiently reminding him of subsequent meetings, both sides felt that the time was not sufficient. Mike had a lot more to tell us about, and we were eager to continue to listen to his countless experiences and reflections. Therefore a follow up meeting was immediately booked, and thus on this Monday we had the chance to once again listen to the inspiring leader. At both meetings, Mike has naturally spoken to us about our company’s strategies and the plans for the future, but the by far most interesting part still has been the personal reflections on leadership and individual development. Mike is a very unpretentious and likeable leader, who had a lot of wisdom to share with us and many good advices to bring along the paths of our continuing careers. It has been a great pleasure to meet with Mike, and I will sum up our impressions with a quote from my fellow graduate engineer Neil who stated it as “I could listen to that man forever!”