The Assembly Government recently announced it's largest ever investment in research and development with a £7.5m contribution to a £103m Airbus-led programme to revolutionise aircraft wing technology.
For Wales, the Next Generation Composite Wing (NGCW) collaborative programme will ensure that the Airbus wing manufacturing plant at Broughton in North Wales, which employs nearly 7,000 people, will remain a world leader and at the cutting edge of wing design and manufacturing.
The Broughton facility is the company's Centre of Excellence for Wing Assembly and Equipping. World-class skills have been developed across a wide range of technology-driven manufacturing disciplines. Both the workforce and the facility have expanded dramatically in recent years with substantial investments in equipment and tools as new aircraft models are added and production increased. Assembly Government support for the Composite Wing research - approximately 15% of the overall external funding sought by the programme - will help to ensure that Broughton remains the Centre of Excellence for assembling wings for the next generation of passenger aircraft
