James Cropper plc and the F35 warplane

Technical Fibre Products Ltd. began operating in 1986, and was developed by Sir James Cropper (father of the current chair) and his executives:

“They snuck off into the laboratory one night and experimented with carbon fibre. The results that returned from analysis were amazing. This stuff absorbs electromagnetic interference, radar – it has many properties” explained Mark Cropper in a 2012 interview.
 

The company now operates under the name "James Cropper Advanced Materials".

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Technical Fibre Product's important innovation was to develop and apply techniques from paper making to produce ‘nonwoven’ high tech materials and fabrics. These new materials were found to have many properties. Some can absorb radar, thus potentially making a ‘stealth’ warplane harder to detect and target, some can block electro-magnetic interference (emi) from the different component systems of a plane interfering with each other. Others have fire retardant properties.

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These nonwovens can be combined in many laminate and composite forms with other materials, thus a range of F-35 components could be made from them, including aircraft skins and structural features. The nonwoven materials produced by James Cropper Advanced Materials (formerly TFP) are made for a range of both military and civil uses. As well as military aerospace applications, some are used in civilian aviation, firefighting, fuel cells and wind turbines.

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For both ‘commercial’ and ‘security’ reasons James Cropper Advanced Materials do not reveal exactly how their nonwovens are used in warplanes like the F-35. In a 2018 press release from the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office we are told that:

“Technical Fibre Products produce advanced materials which play a key role in pilot protection for the F-35. They became involved in the programme in the 1990s and their materials have been core to the aircraft design from the start”.

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The British state’s formal involvement in what became the F-35 programme dates back to 1995, when a Memorandum of Understanding was signed with the USA to join the concept demonstration phase of what was then called the “ Joint Strike Fighter”. So James Cropper Advanced Materials (formerly TPF) and their specialist materials have been involved from very early on in the programme.

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That Cumbria’s James Cropper plc have been involved since these 1990s origins, with “their materials … core to the aircraft design from the start” is significant. James Cropper Advanced Materials (formerly TFP) materials may be involved in more than one F-35 component or subsystem. It may be, with their radar absorbent properties, that these kinds of nonwovens are key across the Pentagon’s 21st century ‘fifth generation’ stealth air warfare strategy. Or they may play a more limited, specific but vital role. What we do know is that the company confirms a long history in military collaboration on its website: “James Cropper has supplied materials into the Defence sector for over 25 years.”

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The website of the company previously proudly claimed: “Our materials have been used on a number of military aircraft and vehicles over the years. A few key examples include: F35 Lightning-II; Eurofighter Typhoon; V-22 Osprey and the B2”.

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They say on their website that “Our success lies in our ability to develop materials which meet specifications that other providers can't fulfil.”. Again, this suggests that James Cropper Advanced Material's specialist materials might be used for a number of purposes in the F-35 programme.

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On their website, James Cropper Advanced Material list three broad areas or technology clusters where their nonwoven materials are used in advanced warplanes like the F-35. These are:

• “Radar Absorption Materials (RAM) / Low Observable (LO) - Dielectric fibres such as glass, polyester or aramid can be blended with precise amounts of conductive fibre to reduce radar cross section”.

• “EMI shielding – OPTIVEIL® & OPTIMAT® carbon and metal coated carbon provide high levels of EMI shielding. These mats and veils can be tailored to meet the required attenuation values at certain specified frequencies. This technology can be used as it comes or incorporated into a composite and offers a competitive lightweight alternative to traditional shielding options”.

• “Radar transparent materials - TFP offer electronically transparent materials which can be used in applications such as radomes”.

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Researcher’s from the University of Manchester studying composite materials in advanced aircraft manufacture tell us: “the F-35 Lightening II Joint Strike Fighter contains carbon fibre composites in the wing structure and fuselage”. On top of this, other composite layers form the aircraft's skin. These specialist composites are chosen not only for their light weight and strength, but also because of their ‘stealth’ qualities, such as radar absorption.

The 2018 M.O.D/ Cabinet Office document also tells us that TFP materials “play a key role in pilot protection for the F-35”. A whole number of components across a plane could be described in this way. Again we may only speculate on possible links. For example in in Ellesmere Port Survitec make and fit the F-35 pilot suit, a suit which combined with a specialist headset is described by BAE Systems as a “wearable cockpit”, superseding conventional aircraft instruments and controls. More research needs to be done on the cluster of medium sized firms and their relationships to the F-35 supply chain in North West England. As the Pentagon / Lockheed Martin’s main F-35 programme website says “every F-35 has British parts incorporated from nose to tail”.

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Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) have mapped all UK companies involved in the manufacture of components for the F35.

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In 2015 Phil Wild, Chief Executive Officer of James Cropper plc, the parent company of TFP enthused to the local Cumbria press how: “TFP product has been specified into the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet and we will benefit from higher sales as quantities for this program increase”.

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In 2021, James Cropper plc announced a new manufacturing line at Burneside to step up production of nonwoven materials “to meet rapidly increasing demand for our nonwovens in markets such as fuel cells and defence”. This follows a doubling of capacity in 2015 and a further expansion of capacity by 50% to 2020. This expansion of capacity matches the movement of F-35s into mass production in recent years, with BAE systems bosses ‘celebrating’ the 1000th F-35 rear fuselage rolling of its Samlesbury, Lancashire production lines in 2023.

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As Managing Director of TFP (now trading as James Cropper Advanced Materials) said in the 2018 annual report.

“In 2017, Lockheed Martin delivered 66 F-35 fighter aircraft. This year will see production and deliveries of 91 aircraft. Subject to completion of key operational tests by May 2019 (albeit a year late), production of this advanced aircraft will rise to 160 per year by 2023” Martin Thompson, Managing Director, Technical Fibre Products 2018.

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He added that: “TFP is also engaged in some interesting R&D on a number of defence projects that will leverage some of our most state of the art technology in future years”.