Hello and welcome to the February/March issue of Aerospace Manufacturing magazine. It’s show-time again folks as the latest edition of the popular Paris-based JEC World composites show gets ready to roll.

Increasingly more aerospace companies want to become part of the global composites supply chain, and why not? Hardly a JEC event passes by without a productionised lightweight composite innovation replacing its heavier metallic counterpart.

JEC World continues to demonstrate that composites in the aerospace manufacturing industry is a hotbed for continually evolving innovative designs, and full of creative people thinking not only of the here and now, but of the aircraft of tomorrow. Look around JEC’s halls and at its very heart you’ll find a band of committed companies attending and exhibiting for the sole purpose of meeting up, forming partnerships and doing business.

Also in this issue, Cranfield University’s head of composites, Krzysztof Koziol discusses ENABLEH2 and how the project will revitalise liquid hydrogen research for civil aviation. Elsewhere, Ian Parker looks at the work the People’s Mosquito project is doing in building a new De Havilland Mosquito which is set to fly as early as 2027.

Continuing the same theme, the Midlands Aerospace Alliance’s Peter Knight describes how the Aerospace UP programme grant has helped CNR Services realise a long-held dream to improve composite test sample manufacture.

Completing the composites quartet is ‘metal to plastic’ conversion specialists, Denroy. The company discusses its work on the high-performance thermoplastics Structural OverMoulding for the Aerospace (SOMA) industry project - a technique that combines short and long carbon fibre reinforced composites to provide efficient, integrated, structures that take advantage of the complementary strengths of both material types.

Next up is our April MACH 2024 show preview edition. Until then, stay safe and keep the manufacturing flag flying!