On the 21st July the Princess Royal, Princess Anne, visited the Triumph Actuation Systems facility in School Road, Onchan.

Triumph were delighted to host the visit, particularly as the timing coincided with two significant anniversaries for the business. This year is the 1st anniversary of ownership by the Triumph Group Inc. who purchased the business from GE Aviation in June 2014. 2015 also marks the 50th year of operations of the business at the School Road site.

General Manager Chris Allen commented: “The Princess Royal was given a brief overview of the company, its products and their applications and then was taken on a guided tour of the manufacturing facility where she was introduced to a number of employees who were able to explain to her how the components were manufactured. Her Royal Highness showed great interest and asked many questions throughout the tour. She was especially interested in the complexity of our processes and technology compared to her last visit in 1984.”

As part of the visit the Princess Royal was asked to unveil a plaque to commemorate her visit which was witnessed by the whole workforce.

President of Triumph Actuation Systems – UK & IOM, Mr Mark McDonald, who attended for the visit, said: “We are delighted and extremely honoured to host the visit of the Princess Royal. The Isle of Man facility has a long heritage in aerospace manufacturing excellence and is a valuable asset to the Triumph Group, I can not think of a better way to celebrate such key anniversaries for this facility”

Triumph Actuation Systems on the Isle of Man is a manufacturing facility within the group Triumph Actuation Systems – UK & IOM which is a business unit of Triumph Group Inc. headquartered in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, USA.

The Isle of Man facility manufactures components for aerospace hydraulic systems. The core products are components for aircraft landing gear hydraulic systems. These systems extend and retract the under carriage leg and open and close the under carriage bay doors.

The manufactured components are made from steel, aluminium or titanium and a range of machining processes are employed on site to cut these metals into the finished product. Assembly work is also performed on site as well as surface treatment of these components for corrosion protection.

Triumph Actuation Systems products feature on many of the world’s aircraft, both civil and military, and they boast many of the big names in aerospace as key customers, names such as Boeing, Airbus and BAe Systems.

The facility has a long heritage and can trace its origins as a business back to founder Bob Dowty, brother of Sir George Dowty the inventor of the aircraft retractable landing gear and founder of Dowty Aerospace. From those origins in the 1930’s the Isle of Man facility has been associated with aircraft landing gear systems ever since and has changed ownership a number of times.