Empennages is an aerostructure manufacturing offering that provides structural aircraft parts or assemblies. It supports an aircraft production programme through the manufacture of structural elements specified for the airframe and its integration requirements.
The Empennages is an aerostructure manufacturing offering from GKN Aerospace with aerospace-grade grade and dual-use market. Empennages are aerostructure assemblies supplied by GKN Aerospace as part of its aerostructures manufacturing offering. An empennage is the tail unit of an aircraft: the fixed stabilisers and the movable control surfaces, the rudder and elevators, that provide directional and pitch control. GKN Aerospace manufactures these assemblies to the airframer's design for series production programmes.
The maker's aerostructures activity covers structural parts and assemblies that are built to a customer's specification and delivered for integration into the airframe. For an OEM, the relevant question with an empennage is not a catalogue figure but the fit of the work package: the interface definition with the fuselage, the control-surface attachments and the actuator fittings, and the production rate and quality system the programme needs.
GKN Aerospace lists thermoplastic composite capability. Thermoplastic rudders and elevators can be joined into one structure by induction welding, which reduces the number of drilled holes and fasteners compared with riveted assemblies. Trade press reports on the Gulfstream programmes describe thermoplastic rudders for the G500, G600, G650 and G650ER and complete empennages for the G550, G650 and G650ER, and the maker names the Gulfstream G650 among the platforms it supplies.
The maker's aerostructures page also names other platforms: the HondaJet, and the NH90, Chinook and AW169 programmes, which cover tail or aft-structure work on business jets and helicopters. These programmes span fixed-wing business aircraft and rotorcraft.
No certification or standard is stated for this offering. Buyers in the commercial and defence aerospace sectors normally need the supplier's quality approvals and the airframer's own qualification, which are agreed in the contract for each programme.
Typical applications are tail units for business jets and helicopters in series production, and structural elements of production aircraft where mass reduction and low part count matter, such as thermoplastic control surfaces for large-cabin business jets.
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