Dufour Aerospace selects Connova for Aero2 composite airframe

Dufour Aero­space has select­ed Con­no­va as main sup­pli­er for the com­pos­ite air­frame of the uncrewed Aero2 tilt-wing air­craft. The major sub-assem­blies of the air­frame main wing, fuse­lage and engine bay will be pro­duced at Connova’s Villmer­gen pro­duc­tion site in Switzer­land.

Connova’s expe­ri­ence in design­ing and pro­duc­ing demand­ing aero­space-grade com­pos­ite struc­tur­al com­po­nents for cus­tomers like Swiss-based air­craft man­u­fac­tur­er Pila­tus will yield Swiss qual­i­ty and pre­ci­sion.

Tay­lan Toprak, Head of Sales & Project Man­age­ment at Con­no­va, com­ment­ed: “I can tell you that we get many inquiries for com­pos­ite air­frames for sim­i­lar UAV or drone projects.

“None of them equal the pro­fes­sion­al­ism and ded­i­ca­tion of Dufour Aero­space in devel­op­ing and mar­ket­ing Aero2. We expect to increase our pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty with the grow­ing demand by Dufour Aero­space in the upcom­ing years.”

Simon Ben­drey, head of design at Dufour Aero­space, added: “Con­no­va has a wealth of expe­ri­ence and knowl­edge as an estab­lished com­pos­ite man­u­fac­tur­er to the aero­space and auto­mo­tive indus­try.

“In mak­ing the wings for Dufour’s cur­rent Aero2 exper­i­men­tal flight test air­craft to a new patent-pend­ing design and man­u­fac­tur­ing method, Con­no­va has demon­strat­ed the dili­gence and pro­fes­sion­al­ism required to assure the high stan­dards of qual­i­ty nec­es­sary to deliv­er light­weight air­craft struc­tures. Work­ing togeth­er, I am con­fi­dent that we can achieve the build stan­dards expect­ed of our reg­u­la­tors and cus­tomers and look for­ward to a suc­cess­ful future togeth­er”.

‍Con­no­va is a lead­ing provider of cus­tomer-spe­cif­ic com­pos­ite com­po­nents and cus­tom-tai­lored ser­vices from the first idea to a fin­ished prod­uct. Its com­pos­ite light-weight experts help clients to find an opti­mum solu­tion for their light-weight projects.

Often in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with lead­ing tech­ni­cal uni­ver­si­ties and part­ners and based on decades of her­itage in avi­a­tion, space, rac­ing, med­ical and spe­cial solu­tions for the indus­try sec­tor, Con­no­va claims to pro­vide the best price-to-per­for­mance ratio and deliv­ery on time.

Com­mit­ted and high­ly qual­i­fied employ­ees, as well as state-of-the-art infra­struc­ture and sol­id man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es are the key to the company’s suc­cess. This is not only true for its com­pos­ite man­u­fac­tur­ing shop equipped with auto­claves, hot press­es, and ovens, but also for the in-house CNC machin­ing shop.

Last Month, Dufour Aero­space released the final design for its Aero2 hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion drone and aero­dy­nam­i­cal­ly-effi­cient tilt-wing design, the pre­cur­sor to the Aero3 larg­er tilt-wing air­craft which could sup­port uncrewed or crewed oper­a­tions.

Dufour Aero­space releas­es final Aero2 design for tilt-wing drone