Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

Crest of a wave: World-first technology central to Royal Navy‘s £3 billion programme

Tex SP, a part of Tex Holdings, has just been selected to build and install the Flying Control rooms (Flyco) for each of the two 65,000 tonne aircraft carriers to be built for the Royal Navy.

The carriers – HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales – will be the largest and most powerful surface warships ever operated by the Royal Navy and their construction is expected to employ around 10,000 people in the UK.

With each ship weighing about 800 tonnes, the CVFs will use 220 tonne diesel generators with a total power output of 108MW – the equivalent of the power needed to run a town the size of Swindon.

One of four initial deals totalling £28m for the CVF awarded by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, the sub-contract is worth £1m to Tex and is in keeping with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) policy of involving smaller specialist companies in this major warship construction programme.

However, according to Tex the MoD has been so impressed with the glass technology used to meet the requirements of the Flyco rooms, that it has written a letter of intent asking Tex to roll it out across the entire ships for a further £1.4m.

Tex had to resolve a number of key technical challenges for the project which will see the installation of the largest pieces of glass ever on a military vessel.

Headed by Michael McCarthy, the design team has worked for the past two years on development of a design that both complies with Lloyds rules for naval warships and meets Navy criteria.

“Normally glass of this size needs to carry a wire mesh to meet requirements laid out by the MoD such as the ability to provide a screen from electro-magnetic energy (EME) and to be heated,” said McCarthy.

“However, we have been able to achieve this with a perfectly optically clear screen.”

The Flyco room will be fitted with the largest glass ever to be employed in a warship. There will be 10 pieces over 3m in height and weighing in at 500kg a piece.

The control rooms are to be built as a part of the Aircraft Carriers modular build strategy and will therefore be manufactured locally and floated by barge from Ipswich up to Rosyth for final installation by the Ipswich team.

Designing and building the ships is expected to sustain and create some 10,000 jobs across the UK throughout its design and manufacture. At the peak of assembly, over a thousand personnel are expected to be engaged on CVF at each of the yards at Govan, Barrow, Rosyth and Portsmouth.

“This contract confirms Tex Special Projects as a serious player in the defence market as we have already supplied six other control rooms to the Ministry of Defence,” said Mark Harrison, Tex Group managing director.

The other contracts include: Eight diesel engines and electricity generators – four for each ship – at a cost of about £18.5m; detailed design of a new and innovative fully Integrated Navigation and Bridge System, initially worth in excess of £1m; advanced visual landing aids, to guide fighters and helicopters on to the deck, at a cost of about £7.5m.

Tex Group employs around 200 people in Ipswich. In 2006, the company generated £34.5m in revenues (2005: £31.7m) and a pre-tax profit of £907,000 (2005: £312k).