Spirit AeroSystems Inc. (Wichita, Kan.) has broken ground on a new 500,000-sq-ft/46,451-sq-m facility at the North Carolina Global TransPark near Kinston, N.C. Spirit is building the plant to accommodate the design and
manufacture of the composite center fuselage frame section for the Airbus A350 XWB.
 
“Today’s groundbreaking ceremony marks a significant milestone in Spirit’s global reach,” said Dan Wheeler, Spirit vice president/general manager, North Carolina Business Unit. “This new manufacturing facility will allow Spirit to serve our customer, Airbus, by offering quality-built components that can be transported to Europe conveniently and quickly by freighter from a nearby seaport.”  
 
Spirit won a contract with Airbus in May to design and produce the A350 XWB’s composite fuselage structure, known as Section 15, which will be approximately 65 ft/19.8m long, 20 ft/6m wide and weigh nearly 9,000 lb/4,082 kg. The company also will produce the front spars for the aircraft’s wings at the Kinston plant, which is scheduled to be operational in 2010.  
 
Spirit’s long-term plans for the Global TransPark plant are to serve as a composite engineering and manufacturing Center of Excellence, using advanced technology in its production processes.