David
Director Auxiliary Mission Equipment
I form part of the executive team for Cobham Mission Equipment,
which is one of two strategic business unit's within the Cobham
Mission Systems division. My role involves managing a suite of
products across the UK and USA, including weapons carriage and
release systems, utilised on many fast jets in the market
today.
My role has lots of variety. Tasks can vary from assessing
proposals in support of new business, and reviewing production
deliveries to ensure our customer commitments are achieved, through
to developing strategic relationships with existing and future
customers. All of this is achieved by the support of a
multi-disciplinary team spanning all functions within the
business.
There are many things which demonstrate Cobham's culture
of innovation with insight. For example, my business
area introduced a cold gas cartridge for pyrotechnic store release
systems. The traditional technology uses old fashioned
pyrotechnic cartridges to release a store from an aircraft. These
cartridges 'explode' in a controlled manner which provides the
energy to release the store. However, this technology has
limitations, as the explosion leaves a deposit through the system
which has to be cleaned once the aircraft returns. We have patented
a technology which replaces the pyrotechnic cartridge with a simple
device that releases compressed air: no explosion means no
cleaning.