Aerospace Welding Minneapolis, Inc. (AWI), has completed 25 years of service as a repair station. During the years the company says it has developed a list of PMAs for everything from GA aircraft exhaust system replacements to engine mounts, and carb heat boxes to mufflers. In connection with their sister company Aerospace Manufacturing, Inc. (AMI), they have earned over 450 PMAs, manufactured and sold over 72,000 PMA parts for certified aircraft. Interestingly, all of their products are placed forward of the firewall. As one of the world’s largest repair stations, occupying a 37,000 square foot aerospace facility, the company says they can repair or replace the exhaust systems or engine mounts for almost every model of General Aviation aircraft. They have already repaired over 8,000 engine mounts.
AWI says that what led to all of this activity was an aggressive program to develop a wide range of capabilities utilizing the newest technologies in the market. They have continued to upgrade their equipment and tooling. For example, most of their work with prototyping these days involves 3D printing. Consequently, they can tackle engineering, research, and prototype development, superior finishing and coating, tooling and fixtures, tube bending, precision machining and sheet metal fabrication. They have created and manufactured components for a wide variety of OEMs including Boeing, Piper, Cessna, Beechcraft, Cirrus, Grumman, Rockwell and a number of foreign manufacturers.
“Resolving challenges has been an incentive and an inspiration to our response process. The search never ends for greater efficiency and durability,” AWI CEO Tom Heid says. “With the new technologies we’ve adopted there’s been a dramatic change from the way we approach prototyping and manufacturing today compared to what we were doing a quarter-century ago. We’ve got 15 new products under development now and we’re always reaching out for more. The next 25 years should be more exciting than the last 25.”