While Dowty Group today is "healthy, a great success, and has great prospects for the future," chief executive Geoff Smith knows nothing comes for free. He is here at Asian Aerospace to discuss new ventures and business opportunities that could benefit his grandchildren many years down the road.

Fluctuating market conditions in Dowty's three major businesses-hydraulics and actuators, aerostructures, and large circular components for turbine engines-have balanced each other in the last year to hold revenues fairly flat at around $950 million. Propellers, for which Dowty is famous and in which it is a world leader, will gradually become a niche market as the number of new propeller-driven aircraft designs declines.

So Smith is looking for new ways to grow what he typifies as a long-lead business, one where investments can take many years to pay off. That's in addition to driving the internal efficiencies that help keep customers satisfied, win more contracts, and enhance both value and profitability.

The firm is well represented on most new major programs, including both JSF contenders and the Airbus A340-500/600, and it has the largest UK supplier position on the C-17. Its Hamble aerostructures has a $150 million order from Boeing for 750 sets of 737NG main spar and structural wing kits, and it also makes the whole Beluga cargo door for Airbus.

But more is needed.

Smith perked up his ears after the company's Paris Air Show exhibit of a skeletal engine featuring parts made by Dowty prompted Rolls-Royce MD John Rose to comment: "If you go on the way you are, you could make a complete engine."

Well, not quite. But Smith would like to bring together parts of Dowty to make more of the engine.

He wouldn't give details of the proposed venture, except to say: "We've now established our engine interests in a rather more coherent way and we'll be building on that at Singapore."

Here, he expects talks to advance with engine companies "to see if it is their interest as they focus more and more on key critical areas to hand over to us both the supply, and in some cases integration, of some key engine actuation together with the structural parts that in the end get moved by those actuators," he said.

"Work over the last 12 months has placed us uniquely to offer structural and in some cases very special engine components in hot end fabricated areas, together with the actuation that goes with it."

No, Smith allowed, he wasn't talking thrust reversers-there's an expanded relationship with Hurel Dubois that covers those -- but perhaps a military application. Moveable nozzles? Afterburners? Smith wouldn't be drawn.

Other business successes include a slowly growing acceptance of Dowty's packaging all the flexible and rigid tubing for an engine into a single dressing kit. Until now the primes have all maintained their own pipe shops to make those fiddly bits that are so hard to fashion in 3D without sophisticated computer systems. Complete kits are also being developed for landing gears.
Dowty now seems to be emerging from the confusion in the marketplace after its parent TI Group sold its 50% stake in the Messier-Dowty landing gear leader to Snecma in 1997, retaining the Dowty group business.

"We have been able to differentiate much more clearly our expertise in hydraulics and actuators associated with landing gears, like locking actuators," said Smith.

"Others are very happy to come to us and ask for collaboration on programs such as JSF, so it is now much easier for us to satisfy our requirement of being world traders on the one hand, and on the other having people realize we are particularly good at certain kinds of hydraulics and actuators -- and landing gear happens to be one of them."

By John Morris