Magellan Aerospace Corporation

Magellan Aerospace sells across four product groupings, and the aerostructures work it is best known for is only one of them. Under aeroengines the company makes complex castings, machined and fabricated gas turbine components both static and rotating, engine shafts, integrated nacelle hardware, flow path parts and exhaust systems for the major engine builders. Aerostructures runs from small machined details up to single one-piece spars more than eighteen metres long, and it includes the F-35 Lightning II horizontal tail assemblies produced in Winnipeg for BAE Systems under an arrangement first signed in 2006 and renewed repeatedly since, with annual deliveries ramping toward sixty shipsets, roughly half the requirement for the conventional takeoff variant. Specialty materials sit under both groupings, and a separate sand castings business supplies aluminium and magnesium parts. Gas turbine work reaches beyond aircraft. Magellan supplies components for helicopter engines and for the turbine power pack used in the M1 Abrams tank.

The rockets line descends from Bristol Aerospace and is the reason Magellan turns up in Canadian defence conversations. Black Brant sounding rockets have flown more than a thousand times since 1962 with a vehicle success rate above 98 percent, and the customer list includes NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and the German Aerospace Center. The CRV7 rocket weapon system is the other line, a 2.75-inch air-to-ground family that Magellan has been developing into the CRV7-PG precision guided variant with Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace, grafting a semi-active laser seeker onto the nose without changing the motor, warhead or airframe. Space is a distinct grouping. Magellan builds the microsatellite-class MAC-100 and MAC-150 buses and the smallsat-class MAC-200, along with satellite avionics and assembly, integration and test services. The MAC-100 flew SCISAT-1, the MAC-200 flew on CASSIOPE and was selected for the RADARSAT Constellation Mission, and Magellan supplies avionics subsystems for MDA's CHORUS Earth observation satellites.

The Wire Strike Protection System is the odd product out and one of the more widely fielded. Bristol Aerospace, absorbed into Magellan in the late 1990s, is the origin of the Winnipeg rocket and space work and of most of the company's Canadian defence relationships. Developed for the Royal Canadian Air Force, it cuts cables a helicopter flies into and is offered on more than seventy-five rotorcraft types. Maintenance, repair and overhaul closes the portfolio, covering engine MR&O, component repair and lifecycle management for aircraft builders, engine manufacturers and space agencies. Magellan operates plants across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, and works on commercial programs including the Boeing 787 and Airbus A380 alongside its military content. Around 3,700 people work there. The corporation took its present shape in 1996 through a series of acquisitions, N. Murray Edwards has been its controlling shareholder since, and the shares trade in Toronto under MAL.