A&O Composites Tackles Niche Component Market

The leftovers of a Cold War strategic bomber base in the Texas Panhandle town of Amarillo have become quarters fine enough for a company that's becoming increasingly well-known for its expertise in composite structures.

Standing outside the 1950s-era hangar that once housed maintenance facilities for B-52 bombers at the former Amarillo Air Force Base-now the Amarillo International Airport-little would one imagine that inside, A&O Composites has made a home while establishing itself in a growing niche market.

"We were once part of a Miami-based company. When that company decided to shut down its operation here in Amarillo our owners, Gary and Linda Therrien, offered to buy them out," said A&O operations manager Paul Brown. "The Miami company decided to sell and we just shifted to doing the same work we'd been doing, but as a separate company on our own," he said.

As its name suggests, the company is specializing in essentially custom-built components crafted out of traditional metal-honeycomb sandwiched between thin aluminum sheeting. The components are then bonded together with high-tech adhesives, most of which are then cured in ovens or in the company's 7- by 22-foot autoclave. The autoclave is capable of not only introducing vacuum into the process but air pressure of up to 150 pounds per square inch.

Also, A&O Composites can offer customers components built out of divinyl cell foam and Kevlar, ounce-for-ounce as strong as some other, more conventional metal-on-metal composites. The higher costs of these composites are offset by substantial weight savings.

"Just about anything that can be dreamed up and designed, we can create," Brown said. "It's up to the imagination of the designers; that's just about the only limitation we have."

Brown said his company isn't really known for cranking out thousands of duplicates although the company could, if needed, gear up to produce mass quantities. The firm's 80,000-square-feet of space is by no means overcrowded, but it's usually the highly specialized, no-longer-produced-by-the-original manufacturer, short-run jobs that A&O is attracting.

"We're seeing orders for relatively short-run production," Brown said, pointing to replacement deck plates for the Air Force's fleet of C-5A Galaxy transports taking shape in company jigs. "We'll get the drawings and then set up the tooling in which to lay up the products."

Just about the time the company was thinking itself blessed with good timing, timing that brought out the purchase from its Miami parent along with some initial contracts to keep the lights burning, the industry took a hit from the post-9-11 downturn.

"We went from sixteen employees to eight, but, as it turned out, it was more of a blessing than we realized," Brown said. "Not so much from the standpoint we had to let some people go-because we really hated that-but from the standpoint it forced us to refine our processes; get more done with fewer people while at the same time maintaining high quality.

"We were able to do that and that's helped us, again, be competitive," he said.

Recently, A&O received an inquiry as to whether it could build a replacement avionics rack that fits behind the radar intercept officer in Grumman F-14 Tomcats.

Most defense manufacturers are rather reluctant to provide anyone the specific technical drawings for any components they originally produced, but there are other ways around that obstacle, Brown explained.

"In this case, we were able to obtain an example of the part we were being asked to produce through other sources," Brown said. "It was the actual part, but one that had been removed and then scrapped because it could not be repaired.

"Once we received the part, we were able to reverse engineer it; we came up with our own specifications and then have been reproducing it without any problems," Brown said. "There are other ways, too, for us to obtain technical specifications and drawings outside of the original manufacturers, so I wouldn't say their reluctance to provide us exact technical specifications is an impediment to our process."

A&O's engineering capabilities, Brown said, go a number of different ways, too, in meeting customer demands.

"We can either build jigs and fixtures, which are themselves engineered to accommodate a number of different configurations for the future or we can build molds or plugs out of wood in order to shape the desired components before they go into the ovens or the autoclave," he said. "It's really not hard for us to come up with any kind of configuration based on the drawings we receive."

Working with metals and epoxy resins is one thing; working with divinyl cell foam and Kevlar is another, Brown said.

"It's mainly the expense associated with the foam and Kevlar that is the major difference," Brown said. "It's about four times the cost of metal, but in the long run, Kevlar and foam aren't susceptible to corrosion or metal fatigue either, so the return on that investment is lower maintenance costs and more time between replacements."

Because of the growing use of Kevlar, carbon fiber, and foam composites in aerospace, the demand for components crafted out of these materials is bringing new demands for higher quality control and quality assurance into the manufacturing process, Brown said.

Standing inside the company's clean-room area, Brown said workers are careful not to touch any of the materials with bare hands during the lay-up process.

"You cannot touch the materials with bare hands during the lay-up because the adhesives won't adhere properly during the curing process," Brown said, noting that all workers wear specialized gloves when handling the foam, Kevlar, and its adhesives.

"Also, this room has a massive air-handling system built into it so that we don't have dust or particulate contamination and the room has a constant three-pounds-to-the-square-inch positive pressure system in order to keep dust and other contaminants outside," he said.

Dale Campbell, A&O's director of quality assurance, said the company also uses random product testing, including non-destructive testing and test-to-destruction methods, to assure quality control.

"We are set up to test to whatever degree our customers set forth in their specifications and to provide the documentation that satisfies their test requirements," Campbell said. "We test practically every aspect of the materials to assure we are getting the proper bonds within all the composites."

On-going testing, according to Campbell, has nearly always demonstrated that the component materials themselves fail before the bonds fail.

"Sometimes the bonds will fail, but what we see in those cases is usually a failure caused by incorrect handling," Campbell said. "We don't see too many bond failures."

Campbell also pointed to a rejected part comprised of foam and Kevlar, bringing attention to what was nearly an unnoticeable shift of the foam during the curing process.

"This part might have been shipped out and it's likely it would have provided good service; it's hard to say actually," Campbell said. "But, our commitment to quality assurance, and the way we inspect these parts once they are finished, caused this part to be rejected before being sent to the customer.

"We're very careful with the [post-production] inspection and if we find the slightest flaw, we'll reject it and it will never leave the shop," he said.

A major boost in A&O's competitiveness has been its growing reputation with its military customers, some of which are now essentially advancing funds to A&O for pre-purchase of materials with an interest in costs savings. Those materials, which are inventoried at the customers' cost and secured behind chain-link fencing in the company facility, come at what amounts to no cost to A&O's bottom line.

Another key asset to A&O's ability in staying highly competitive in what most agree is a cutthroat market is the deal it has on its facilities.

When the Air Force handed over the former air base to Amarillo, the city became the proud owner of all airside facilities including four sets of massive former maintenance hangars that the city now rents to customers as part of Amarillo's aggressive and successful economic development effort.

For just $1,000 per month, A&O Composites rents the 80,000 square feet that at one time housed Bell Helicopter's Amarillo operation. When Bell moved to newer facilities on the airfield, it left behind a lot of aerospace construction equipment including the autoclave that Brown estimates would have cost A&O about $2.5 million if it had had to buy one.

"All the equipment is included in the rent," Brown said. "Our agreement with the city includes our being responsible for the maintenance of the building and all the equipment that belongs to the city, so it is a very good deal for us.

"Because of our partnership with the city, we can provide jobs and property taxes; we can maintain the city's equipment and facility while at the same time remaining competitive in the marketplace," he said. "That's why we are in Amarillo and why we will probably stay in Amarillo."