Shareholders visit Safran Helicopter Engines plant in southwest France

Plant General Manager Alain Peltier kicked off the visit with a general overview of the company, the world’s leading manufacturer of helicopter turbine engines, while also presenting the plant and its history.

Shareholders enjoyed a guided tour of the buildings, which gave them a close-up look at how helicopter turboshaft engines are repaired.  The visit started with the Arriel and Arrius engine repair line. Engines are first disassembled, then checked and parts repaired or replaced if necessary; once reassembled, engines are again checked before being shipped back to our customers. The visitors then met teams at the Parts Repair Center of Excellence, who showed the shareholders what they do and all the machinery and equipment needed to continue to improve customer support services. This unit repairs parts from all over the world: in 2016, for instance, it repaired some 12,000 parts and 6,500 accessories. After getting a quick look at a parts production line, our visitors were then welcomed to the Safran Helicopter Engines Academy. This entity manages a global network of 16 training centers, located in four zones: North America, Asia-Pacific, South America and Europe-Africa-Middle East.

Visitors were then taken to see an engine on display which is highly symbolic for the Tarnos facility: the Adour. In 1965 Safran Helicopter Engines (called Turbomeca at the time) opened a facility in Tarnos to expand its repair capacity, but also to start production of the Adour jet engine, mainly intended for the Jaguar fighter-bomber and the Hawk trainer, in conjunction with Rolls-Royce.

Shareholders then visited the showroom dedicated to CAP 2020, a project to build new facilities at Tarnos and modernize current ones. These new facilities should be up and running by the end of the decade.

In particular, CAP 2020 will improve workflows through an enhanced organization of buildings and staff, to significantly reduce repair and production cycles.