Daher’s position demonstrates well the state of the global aerospace market.

“We are in a paradox situation—some are happy; some are not happy,” said Patrick Daher, board chair for the Daher group, in kicking off the company’s performance review for 2023 in Paris on February 7. “We are feeling the impact of the international situation, and then we are still recovering from COVID, but the COVID crisis is over for us…But some international threats—for example the war in Ukraine and the Middle East, the future elections, the situation in China—all these events have created a political instability that is really worrying for the future.”

Yet industry events such as the 2023 Paris Air Show indicate where the future lies—with caution as to the expense of making change. “As chairman [of] the Salon de Bourget in 2023 and chairman of Daher…I have the chance to see that energy transition is coming with a really high price,” said Daher. “Speaking about industry, we have really good news in terms of an increase in production.”

In 2023, Daher recorded strong deliveries of both its TBM and Kodiak series turboprops, with a total of 56 TBMs and 18 Kodiaks, for a total of 76 units. In addition, it counts more than 100 turboprops in its order book, taking it well into 2025.

READ MORE: Daher Delivers 100th TBM 960

An Industry Overview

At the same time, major Daher client and partner Airbus has never manufactured so many aircraft—a record number went out the door in December, as Daher noted in the report. That is in spite of the constant pressures brought on by inflation, provisioning difficulties, recruitment challenges, rise in wages, and lowering margins. Collectively these have led to soft pricing models that have persisted through the past couple of years.

“We have forgotten how to deal with such problems of inflation that we experienced 20 years ago,” said Daher. “It was really hard to find raw materials, and this was linked to geopolitical problems, [such] as the war in Ukraine. We were missing material. This lack of raw materials is linked to the mismanagement of the supply chain—the suppliers failed to ship what we needed to manufacture our aircraft—and to produce what our clients asked us to do.”

Another problem Daher noted has been the lack of employee candidates. “It is not easy to recruit the right profiles…The COVID crisis changed behaviors in terms of wages and employees, so it is really hard for us to hire and find talents.” This has driven companies like Daher to invest heavily in training—because like never before they have had to recruit from outside the aviation industry.

“All these factors in 2023—after COVID, we were expecting 2021 and 2022 to be difficult—but these problems arrived in 2023,” Daher said. “All of these factors resulted in our weakened profitability. We need to consider the energy transition and the decrease in carbon intensity…2023 highlighted the emergency but also the [convergence], vis-à-vis the problem of decarbonization.”

The Daher group considers government support crucial—specifically CORAC, the French council for civil aviation research—and 300 million euros per year have been earmarked by CORAC to help fund the energy transition. “Aviation industry, all research efforts, have converged, because in the past each company focused on a specific research field, but right now there is a really clear target: low-carbon, low-emission aircraft,” Daher said.

Eco-Pulse Update

For the French OEM, the convergence flies today via its hybrid-electric Eco-Pulse technology demonstrator, which uses a TBM airframe, electric motors and powertrain components form Saran, and electric power storage by Airbus in a distributed lift model (simply put) to test various components and how they interact in actual flight operations. The Eco-Pulse retains a Pratt & Whitney PT6A turboprop engine, but in December made its first flight segments completely powered by the six electric motors.

“It is a major step towards decarbonization,” said Daher. “Because high voltage electricity can be a good solution…we are continuing with some hybrid tests. This is the first step…People thought I was crazy [last year] when I spoke about this target [to have a marketable product by 2027], but we are headed in that direction.” It will be a TBM or Kodiak because those are the models Daher has in its portfolio, but the company has yet to determine which will be chosen and exactly what that will look like.

FLYING asked if the OEM could share any feedback—including any performance data, if possible—from those first flights. Christophe Robin, vice president of engineering for Daher’s aircraft division, provided this insight: “EcoPulse is a technology demonstrator, therefore, aircraft performance is not the goal. The EcoPulse configuration has been chosen with the strategy of increasing the level of complexity in hybridization to develop a ‘maturity picture’ for all of the technologies involved—including examining side effects such as weight penalties, as well as issues induced by HIRF (high-intensity radiated field) and lightning.”

READ MORE: We Fly: Daher TBM 960

Log’in, Shap’in, Fly’in

To support innovation efforts, Daher launched its second tech center, Log’in, in Toulouse, also geared toward decarbonization. “Out of 7 million tonnes [of carbon emissions] we realized that a big quantity is related to our clients, and we want to work on these figures [as well] in order to work on decarbonization,” said Daher.

Fly’in will be the third tech center Daher launches, in Tarbes, focused on aircraft development, “stepping up” in both technology and the drive towards net-zero emissions.

FLYING also asked Daher to expand on the current projects that have already been realized from the new technology centers and Eco-Pulse. Robin shared a portion of what the group has learned thus far, and what it expects to benefit from. 

“In addition to the aspects of EcoPulse that are linked to aircraft hybridization, another important focus is demonstrating the application of advanced composites on aircraft,” said Robin. “Under the guidance of Daher’s research and technology teams, EcoPulse is using composites for the aircraft’s winglets, engine pylons, Karman and battery fairings, as well as the air inlet—which were produced primarily with an infusion-based carbon/cork micro-sandwich. A goal of EcoPulse is to make it possible to evolve the performance and feasibility of integrating these technologies on secondary parts/components of Daher-built aircraft, while developing rapid prototyping skills used within the aviation framework.”

This is complementary to other developments underway at Daher—including projects in cooperation with partners such as CORAC (the French Council for Civil Aeronautical Research).

Pascal Laguerre, chief technology officer for Daher, provided significant insight beyond the Eco-Pulse demonstrator. “Taking a wider view for activities outside the framework of EcoPulse, Daher devotes a significant part of its overall R&D budget to thermoplastics,” said Laguerre. “This material is particularly promising in the world of aerostructures for future applications on production aircraft. It lends itself more easily to the automation of production (issue of throughput), and it is recyclable, repairable and weldable. Its mechanical properties make it possible to use less material and, overall, make structures lighter—all of which are key qualities with a view toward reducing carbon emissions. This is focused on accelerating the development of real applications in the future for the benefit of its customers, including [several more widely focused] projects.”

For example, as part of CORAC, Daher leads the largest French research project on thermoplastics in current execution, called TRAMPOLINE 2 (TheRmoplAstic coMPosites for hOrizontaL tail plaNE), as well as utilizing induction welding instead of riveting—with a weight savings of 15 percent.

Also, the investment has already borne fruit in components that will be found on the company’s current TBM product lines.

“After more than three years of R&D work, Daher succeeded in manufacturing rudder pedals in recycled high-performance thermoplastic composites from production scraps to equip the TBM, which have been certified for flight on production TBMs,” said Laguerre. “In addition to being lightweight, thermoplastics have low thermal conduction, as well as equal or better physicochemical and mechanical properties: It’s a win-win for Daher customers. And beyond the environmental benefits, the cost of these parts is significantly reduced compared to metal machining.

“In addition, Daher has obtained the first results of an R&D project called CARAC TP, carried out in collaboration with a set of academic laboratories competent in composite materials. The objective [is] to identify and characterize the thermoplastic composites best suited to aeronautical applications and compare them to thermoset materials. The project makes it possible to study materials in depth through multiple tests that go beyond the scope of qualification programs carried out in the industry: impact resistance, fire resistance, environmental aging (ozone, UV, fluids), impact of manufacturing processes on physicochemical properties, material performance, etc.”

Daher looks also outside its walls to new small businesses to help drive this innovation charge. Encouragingly, more than 300 aerospace-relevant startups took part in the Paris Air Show.

“We had 25 of these startups at the Daher stand at Le Bourget,” said Daher, noting that the company looks forward to engaging with these innovators, perhaps through acquisition or collaboration, on various projects.

WATCH: We Fly the Kodiak 900, Ready for Grand Adventures

The Takeoff 2027 Strategy

Daher reported a strengthening bottom line but noted there is room for improvement. At the press conference, Daher CEO Didier Kayat indicated the belief that Daher would become profitable based on its strategic realignment to better serve four sectors: aircraft, industry, industrial services, and logistics. The company also plans a transformation of the organizational structure by 2025, to help align and draw down any existing silos between the business functions.

To this end, Daher made a quartet of additions to its executive committee in the later part of 2023. On October 1, Alain-Jory Barthe joined Daher’s Industry division as senior vice president. Then, on January 1, Cédric Eloy became the head of the Industrial Services division as senior vice president of manufacturing services, and Julie de Cevins became the group’s chief sustainability officer—a key appointment, given the group’s charge to attain net-zero goals by 2050. Finally, on February 1, Aymeric Daher became senior vice president of the Logistics division.

Daher is adapting its organization to support the four business units, with the following actions:

• To create a managerial culture that is based in what it calls the “Daher Leadership Model”—effectively empowering a cadre of 1,500 leaders within the company to act with an entrepreneurial spirit
• To anticipate challenges and innovate toward decarbonisation solutions, with Eco-Pulse among other projects
• To support the acquisitions needed for growth across the four sectors.

Acquisitions have already borne fruit for the company, including the Stuart, Florida, facility.

“The acquisition of AAA strengthened the Industrial Services division, for example,” Daher said. “We are now the leader of industrial services…We can support aircraft manufacturers in peak periods.”

If Daher can make its way through the concurrent challenges of acquisition-driven growth, corporate restructuring, price pressures, and order fulfillment, its plan for the years ahead puts it on track to form part of the global solution to decarbonization—as well as providing the aircraft the customer demands for the future.

The post Daher’s Decarbonization Plans Drive Towards Hybrid-Electric Aircraft, Composites appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The plan to acquire Triumph Aerostructures in Stuart, Florida, was announced in February, as a complement to and expansion of Daher’s footprint in North America, as well as enhancing the company’s ability to serve customers, such as Boeing and Gulfstream, based in the U.S.

Senior leadership from Daher assembled on Wednesday with the entire Aerostructures team and local business leaders to celebrate the occasion. With a location map spanning 13 countries and 2021 revenue of $1.5 billion—including that of the new acquisition—Daher is completing its current five-year plan with a significant move to expand its reach in the U.S. 

Didier Kayat, CEO of Daher, addressed this next stage at a press conference at the Aerostructures center. 

“We were [before the Stuart acquisition] very Euro-centric, because…80 percent of the business was done in Europe, and we want to balance that and to do exactly the same business model in the U.S., in 15 years—or probably quicker because we have [experienced] the learning curve,” said Kayat. 

In fact, he proposes that the company could accomplish the integration within five years based on what the team has learned. Daher produces aircraft parts and assemblies for Airbus (jets and helicopters), Dassault (including full fuselages), and Embraer, as well as its own TBM and Kodiak single-engine turboprops.

“We are the only company in the world that is an aircraft manufacturer as well as a family-owned company, as well as a company working in both manufacturing and services. I’m almost sure there is no company having the same DNA in the world.” Kayat estimated that 85 percent of Daher’s business is in aerospace.

Kayat also discussed how the company’s diversity of revenue streams helped it withstand the recessions of 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic—and that the Stuart acquisition would further strengthen its ability to meet supply-chain demands as the aviation sector continues to rebound. “In 2009, we lost 20 percent of the business and recovery was done in two years,” said Kayat, “whereas the whole market suffered much longer than that. In 2020, with the COVID crisis, the whole market lost 40 percent of the business; we at Daher only lost 15 percent.

“We do consider that producing something without having security in the supply chain doesn’t make sense—that’s why we are also a big player in logistics and services, because we consider the discontinuity between the supply chain, the warehousing, the manufacturing, and the final assembly line are key in the success of what we do, and what we do for our customers.”

What Does It Build?

The personnel at Triumph have expertise in crafting complex structures for aerospace applications. These include building wing and fuselage assemblies—such as the massive center wing sections and paired horizontal stabilizers for the Boeing 767, and the far more delicate flap assemblies for the 777—incorporating not only advanced metal manufacturing and bonding processes but also thermoplastic and other composite layup capabilities. 

The addition of the Boeing contracts gives balance to Daher’s overall customer mix in commercial aviation, which had been heavily focused on Airbus. The Stuart facility also makes a small volume of components—about 5 percent of the total production—for Gulfstream at the moment.

Advanced processes, such as 3-D printing of certain composite structures, have also been implemented on the TBM series, and this could be part of the future as well. “The idea of our technology department and the three tech centers [Daher has developed] is to test everything—and not only to test them but to use them on our own planes—we are the OEMs on that,” said Kayat. “And we can test and see what is reasonable to do, not just reasonable to buy.”

Laurent Schneider-Maunoury, senior vice president of industry for Daher, gave examples of metallic components Daher currently produces in Europe. “We are making some winglets, some main landing gear, wing boxes, total wings—for ourselves…but also for ATR, for Gulfstream, and for Airbus,” Schneider-Maunoury said. “You will find these types of products here in Stuart. There’s only one difference—the size. Here, it’s far bigger.” 

The Stuart facility sits at a critical intermodal point, with its site on the Stuart airport, Whitman Field (KSUA), and a rail line coming into the factory. Ports at Cape Canaveral and Miami also lie within easy reach.

Creating the feeling of belonging is a critical part of the Daher culture. “For us it is very important, the fact that we are family owned,” Schneider-Maunoury said. “In the current Daher group, we are part of the same culture. When you bring someone in, you adopt someone—you make a sense of belonging.” 

Schneider-Maunory looks forward to the integration and support the Stuart facility will bring to Daher’s Kodiak manufacturing currently taking place in Sandpoint, Idaho, as well as facilities serving Airbus and other OEMs in the U.S. A “complete, competitive supply chain” within North America is the goal, he said. However, the current capacity for manufacturing the TBM series at Tarbes, France, and the Kodiak in Sandpoint is sufficient, with some room to expand, according to Kayat.

A History of Manufacturing Integration

“As a family-owned company, our core strengths are built on a long-term vision and a corporate social responsibility policy that values our employees,” said Patrick Daher, chairman of Daher’s board of directors, in a statement. “We are fully committed to the Stuart facility’s future, and look forward to its role in serving our customer base as Daher shapes the aviation supply chain of today and tomorrow.”

The roots of Daher go back to 1863—the time of Napoleon III—while the aircraft manufacturing business that now builds the TBM and Kodiak series had its beginning in 1911, as Morane-Saulnier. “We always claim the milestones of the companies we acquire,” said Kayat, including this heritage that was adopted by Daher upon its acquisition of SOCATA in 2009. 

Current family ownership stands at 87 percent, and the company will remain family-owned, as Kayat confirmed. “The advice I have from my shareholders is, ‘You can do whatever you want but you must always keep more than 51 percent of the company.’ And that counts because it helps us, having long-term vision strategies. We can invest in aerospace, [in] long-term programs.”

In It for the Long Haul

The fact Daher plans to make those long-range commitments to the Stuart team and the local area appeared to resonate with the employee group assembled for a town hall following the press conference and tour of the manufacturing lines. 

General manager for the Stuart center Curtis Hoffman captured the feeling in his remarks. “As your site leader, I am very proud of everyone…As communications continued with Stuart and Daher, the synergy was evident, and I knew early on that Daher was a perfect partner for us.” Daher intends to keep current management in place at Stuart, as well as the potential to grow the workforce from today’s 400-person headcount.

Following our acquisition of the Stuart, Florida #aerostructures facility, we officially welcomed its 400 employees into the Daher family. Daher is now a Tier 1 supplier to @Boeing and we’ve increased our work for @GulfstreamAero. This is another milestone in our strategic plan. pic.twitter.com/u7lYj5Qt9n

— Daher (@DAHER_official) July 7, 2022

“The energy has been very positive ever since Daher started coming to see us,” Hoffman said. “The first thing Daher wanted to know from me was, ‘How are the people? What are the people like?’ It wasn’t about ‘Are you making schedule? What’s your quality?’ It was about people. So we knew right off the bat it was a family business, and we were going to be part of the family.”

Daher also plans to team with the local business community and city and county leadership on several fronts, including education, tapping into K through 12 schools and Indian River Community College for workforce development and inspiring aerospace careers.

Another aspect of the long-term vision lies in the commitment to decarbonization. With its EcoPulse demonstrator in development, Daher looks to show its leadership in the drive towards a net-zero-emissions air transportation environment by 2050.

“This is a demonstrator—not a product…we are learning a lot, with the help of Safran for the engines,” Kayat said, “and Airbus for the batteries, and we are providing the airplane. We are learning how to manage high voltage in a plane—because we are convinced that, being a family-owned company, that we have to be a responsible company, and accelerate in the decarbonization of our product. 

“Otherwise, we lose the business…the younger generations, especially in Europe…are very keen on how [we can] limit the impact on the planet, and we have to be part of that.”

Those engines from Safran currently on the EcoPulse? They’re six distributed propulsion motors mounted on the wing’s leading edges and tips of a TBM-based airframe. Kayat projected that the EcoPulse would make its first flight by the end of 2022.

Another piece of Daher’s environmental approach? Going back to testing in 3-D printing, the company is investigating in its tech centers the recycling of thermoplastics in that model. Utilizing scraps of plastic from the components it manufactures for customers, Daher has produced new parts as part of the testing.

Daher Delivers First U.S. 960s

Daher’s senior vice president of the Aircraft Division, Nicolas Chabbert, flew one of the new TBM 960s to Stuart from the company’s service center in Pompano Beach (KPMP) so that the new Daher team members could get a look at this important member of the family. Daher obtained FAA certification for the aircraft on June 24, on top of its EASA approval back in March.

The first two 960s with FAA airworthiness certificates came across the pond starting on June 25 from France for customer acceptance at Elliott Jets, based at Flying Cloud Airport (KFCM) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and AVEX Aviation at the Camarillo Airport (KCMA) in Southern California.

“I want to recognize the collaborative work of EASA and the FAA that resulted in the TBM 960’s certification,” said Chabbert. “I also want to express my thanks to our U.S. customers for their patience during the certification process. We’ve had an exceptional response overall to the TBM 960 since its launch, with more than 60 orders now logged worldwide for this latest version.” 

Chabbert confirmed that a total of nine TBM 960s had arrived in the U.S., with 10 delivered thus far in Europe. Plans include a total of 60 TBM deliveries in 2022.

The post Daher Makes a Play to Expand Footprint in North American Market appeared first on FLYING Magazine.