The post-pandemic bounce experienced by many companies active in business aviation has been great news across the sector, but businesses in adjacent markets may be seeing benefits, too.
One firm targeting business aviation as it seeks to grow is JB Roche, the Cork, Ireland-based provider of inflatable maintenance shelters.
“You go wherever the business is coming from,” says Ian Nagle, the company’s managing director.
Early adopters of JB Roche’s products—which it markets as Igloos—included operators and manufacturers of airliners, and militaries. But, as business jets get larger, and the imperative to keep aircraft down time to a minimum demands maintainers find quickly deployable solutions to AOG incidents, the firm has seen interest in their systems rise. But addressing such a dispersed and diverse market is not easy. “We realize there are opportunities within the business-aviation market, but it’s hard to know where to start,” Nagle says. “We’ve certainly had some very nice successes. Dassault, for example, has purchased Igloos from us, but more for working in their own facilities where they need to do things like composite repairs or paint touch-up jobs. Bombardier has purchased from us; Rolls-Royce North America has asked us to make an Igloo, which would mount on the side of the aircraft so they could crane fuselage-mounted engines off the back of Gulfstream 550s and 650s and still have protection.”
The company first developed enclosures within which engine changes could be carried out. Subsequent products enabled fuselage work to take place, and landing-gear maintenance. Enclosures for radome and windshield maintenance were also developed, in response to requests from customers. “Literally, there almost isn’t a part of the aircraft we don’t make an inflatable capsulation for,” Nagle says. JB Roche also manufactures inflatable plugs for engines, which protect the powerplants during periods of storage without requiring the engine to be removed from the wing.
The incentives and the financial dynamics in business aviation differ from the commercial MRO market. Nagle points out that insurers will often be covering the costs of down time for maintenance of an airliner, whereas in business aviation the operators will usually be paying those bills—meaning that the potential customer base will be eager to find a cheap and effective solution. But for a company like Roche—founded in 1999, and with a workforce at present of just 18 people—finding out about potential opportunities and getting the company’s products pitched to the relevant purchasing staff, can be difficult.
“The business-aviation community can certainly see the benefits,” Nagle says. “It’s just a real challenge for us to be heard. Despite our small size we’ve provided a unique product, which all of the bigger players in the commercial market know about. They keep coming back to us with challenge after challenge, whether it’s for military aircraft or commercial aircraft. I think we can bring some serious innovation to the business-jet market, but the ongoing challenge for us is how do we get ourselves known in that sector?”
One way, certainly, would be to develop an innovative product that would be of particular interest to the sector. And, Nagle says, this is exactly what JB Roche will be bringing to market during 2023.
“In some cases, aircraft almost need to be rebuilt on the spot,” he says. “If you end up losing the landing gear on an [Airbus] A320, you’ve got to put the aircraft back together where it is. Whereas with a business jet, you have the opportunity, potentially, to tow it somewhere. But sometimes—and this is where we think there’s a big market opportunity—you need to get it off a runway, and then if you could inflate a hangar which will accommodate the entire jet, that’s the way to go.”
A whole-aircraft pop-up hangar, big enough to accommodate a large business jet, is a product Roche is targeting for a mid-2023 launch.
“Initially, batteries will inflate it,” Nagle says. “Then solar cells will re-power those batteries. So, this is something you can take to the middle of nowhere, set it up, put an aircraft into it, and then whether you want to use it for a month or for 10 years, it’s there and it’s available, and it’s very low cost.”
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