Spirit AeroSystems and Airbus officially opened a new 46,450m2 manufacturing plant on July 1 in Kinston, North Carolina, which is designing and will manufacture composite centre fuselage upper and lower shells and front wing spars for the Airbus A350 XWB.
Design work for the components has been underway for approximately two years, with manufacturing set to begin immediately.
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Fuselage components designed and manufactured in North Carolina will be shipped to Spirit’s new facility in Saint-Nazaire, France, and assembled before being transported to Airbus as Section 15. Section 15 will be approximately 19.8m long, 6.1m wide and weigh nearly 4080kg. The front spar meanwhile will be shipped to Spirit’s UK operations in Prestwick, Scotland, for integration into the wing leading edges before being shipped to Airbus for final assembly.
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