Celebrating 25 Years of Innovation

In celebration of Comtek's 25th birthday, we take a look back at how far we have come and some of our key milestones along the way.

In 1994 Comtek opened as a small facility dedicated to advanced composites design, manufacturing and repair. At that time, the use of composites was somewhat new to the industry and Comtek found a niche providing repair solutions.

Initially, Comtek repaired parts primarily for Dash-8 aircraft with a focus on developing repairs with damage that exceed typical repair limits. In 1997, Comtek developed repair processes for extensively damaged composite leading edges, including punctures and major damage from bird strikes. 22 years later, Comtek remains the only Approved Facility for major custom repairs on Dash-8, and Q-Series leading edges.Since then, we have added capabilities to repair more parts on more aircraft. We now offer a growing library of over 850 repair schemes that we use to address complex and extensive damage to a variety of components. More recently, we have developed repairs for CRJ Ram Air Ducts and an Acoustic Liner repair for Q400 engine cowls.

Earlier this year we opened a new repair facility in the United Kingdom to provide closer service to our customers across the Atlantic.

Today we repair more than 800 components a year for more than 30 operators world wide.

Although early focus was on repairs, the entrepreneurial and inventive culture drove Comtek to develop weight and performance improvements for composite floor panels. Our first Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) was received back in 1995, allowing us to sell replacement panels for Dash-8 aircraft. By 1997 we had our first OEM contract, on the Q400 launch. Since then Comtek has become a key supplier to Bombardier and has grown to produce more than 18,000 OEM and aftermarket panels per year. Some of our milestone programs are shown in the timeline below.

By onboarding turboprop, regional jet and business jet floors programs over the past 25 years, Comtek has grown to become the largest floor panel supplier in the Regional/Business segment.

Over the years, we have completed challenging projects bydeveloping and qualifying new material systems and manufacturing processesto help customers design new lightweight components.

Comtek's resin infusion technology began with the development of prototype carbon structural parts for Formula 1 race cars in 2002. Since that time, we have further developed the technology for aerospace applications, including the production of resin-infused parts for the Airbus A380 program. These were among the very first parts to have been certified and introduced into service on a Part 25 commercial transport – in this case, the largest transport aircraft in the world!

We continue to leverage resin infusion and other out-of-autoclave technologies on new aircraft programs, based on a strong cost advantage compared to legacy composites production methods such as autoclave cure. From the development of high strength, collapsible transit cases to our extensive work in aero-engine components, our innovative "get it done" culture continues to drive us to provide the solutions our customers need.

Today, our focus remains on helping customers design lightweight components for new aircraft and retrofit applications. We remain committed to providing fast, competitively priced, high quality repairs and floor panels for our airline operator customers and will continue to develop new solutions to meet the changing needs of their fleets.