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FACC AG (Ried im Innkreis, Austria) announced Jan. 10 it has delivered the 1,000^th shipset of the outer flaps for the Airbus A321. FACC has been manufacturing the wing components in an automated assembly line since 2012, supplying products for the Airbus (Toulouse, France) medium-range aircraft.

The outer flaps of the Airbus A321 are about 7.5m long, 1.26m wide and almost 40 cm high. FACC manufactures them from carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) and glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP). Both lightweight construction materials exhibit a high degree of stability and meet the high load requirements combined with a low weight. 

“The special features of FACC flaps are their high degree of automation including tape layers and pulse echo test robots, their sophisticated assembly, but also the size of their components and the clocked assembly line,” says says Robert Machtlinger, CEO of FACC.

According to FACC, numerous milestones were achieved during the course of the project, such as the introduction of a clocked assembly line, the implementation of a new outer flap model for the A321neo (new engine option) and the automation of the drilling process with the company’s own robots. Further reported advantages of FACC’s flap production include short lead times which is said to have given rise to a rate ramp-up of at least 26 shipsets per month.