Aerospace in Minnesota - Minnesota Precision Manufacturing ...

There’s a big difference between theseats inside a small, private plane versusthe seats inside a large, commercial plane.For starters, they’re more comfortable.They’re also much safer because they’rebuilt to withstand harder impacts.Northstar Aerospace knows theseand other differences firsthand. Based inDuluth, Northstar is the world’s largestcontract supplier of seats for small,general aviation planes.Two of Northstar’s largest customersare Cirrus Design, also based inDuluth, and Eclipse Aviation, based inAlbuquerque, New Mexico. Cirrus andEclipse happen to be two of the largestmanufacturers of general aviation planesin the world.{ }This year Eclipse is on target tomake 450 very light jets (under 10,000pounds) and Cirrus is scheduled to makeapproximately 800 planes. As a Tier ISupplier to Eclipse and Cirrus, Northstarsupplies each aircraft with four to six seats.In addition, Northstar manufactures anumber of precision machined parts forCirrus, Eclipse and others in the generalaviation industry.“We’re doing some really great stuff,”said Northstar Director of Sales LogisticsDave Hogan. “We had about 30 percentgrowth last year and 30 percent growththe year before that. We’re planning a57 percent vertical growth for 2008.”All of the seats for Cirrus and Eclipseplanes are machined and assembled insideNorthstar’s 40,000-square-foot facility.Incredibly, none of Northstar’s seatshave ever failed in a crash. Given itssuperior safety record, an inspectorfrom the National Transportation andSafety Board (NTSB) recently contactedNorthstar to inquire about its high successrate and learn more about its assemblyprocedures.“It was quite a compliment,” saidNorthstar President John Eagleton.“And now we’re putting airbags in theseatbelts of those small planes for anadded measure of protection.”Another interesting note is thatNorthstar has achieved 100 percentquality over the last 18 months.“That means we’ve supplied 210,000parts without a quality issue, and notone part was late,” Eagleton said.Since opening its doors 15 years ago,Northstar has experienced incrediblevertical growth.“When I came here in 1998, we hadthree machinists, an operations manager,and me,” Eagleton said. “Today we have110 employees. We’ll have close to 200employees by the end of this year and300 employees into 2010. We have a$200 million backlog right now toexecute in the next five years.”Much of Northstar’s growth is due tothe fact that demand for small, generalaviation aircraft and very light jets isgrowing. Frustrated with rising fares,layovers and long lines at security checkpoints, an increasing number of businesspeople, and even families, are purchasingplanes from Cirrus and Eclipse. Theirorders have been going up every year,especially since 9/11, and are expected toremain strong for the foreseeable future.Currently, Cirrus is designing a fivepassenger,very light jet that includes twofold-down seats for children. Estimatedto cost less than $1 million, it is designedspecifically for families on the go.As for Eclipse, it has 2,600 planes onbackorder – and 25 percent of thoseorders were placed on the Internet.“These people went online, chose thetype of plane and features they wanted,and put it on their credit card. Boom, justlike that!” Eagleton said. “This isn’t just atrend. This is the future; it’s coming.”Last year alone, Northstar doubled thesize of its facility just to accommodatethe growth of Eclipse and Cirrus.Eagleton said a number of other airplanemanufacturers have approached Northstarto do work for them as well.“We found a market niche,”Eagleton said. “And now we’ve grownto be the leader in general aviation seatmanufacturing.” PM