Profile: Dave Corfield

WHEN 16-year-old Dave Corfield was welcomed on to the vast Hawker Siddeley site at Brough in 1978, he was taking the first steps on a passage to India.

Although he couldn’t have known it at the time, his new role would provide a window into a world far removed from his home in Hessle.

Fast forward 35 years, and Mr Corfield is in charge of the whole site, and acutely aware of the complex’s wider role. A prosperous operation at Brough helps to support the whole of East Yorkshire’s economy.

“There are a lot of small businesses that exist because of the site,” Mr Corfield said.

In many respects, the history of Brough, which is now part of the BAE Systems empire, is a history of the local families who have provided the site with skilled technicians.

These technicians are helping the Hawk training aircraft to swoop on opportunities in the face of intense competition.

When Mr Corfield joined, Britain was about to be swept into the turmoil of the winter of discontent that led to the downfall of James Callaghan’s Labour Government. At the time, Hawker Siddeley employed 5,200 people at Brough. Today, there are 870 people on the site, which gives an insight into the painful adjustments that have been made over the last three decades.

However, in his new role as site director, Mr Corfield wants to focus on the opportunities for growth. He has taken up the post as Brough’s engineering and manufacturing teams gear up to help develop the latest version of Hawk, the world’s most successful training aircraft, which has recently picked up orders in Saudi Arabia and Oman.

According to Mr Corfield, Brough’s aircraft testing facilities, which BAE Systems uses on its Typhoon and F-35 programmes as well as the Hawk, will help to determine the fate of the group’s Military Air and Information (MAI) business.

Mr Corfield will remain the India programmes director for the MAI business in his new role.

Back in 1978, Mr Corfield had a choice – work at Hawker Siddeley site in Brough or take a job at the Dunston’s shipyard in Hessle. Sadly, the shipyard closed soon afterwards, so he made the right decision in going to Brough.

He was among 140 apprentices who started work on the site that year.

“There was a real pride and passion on the site,” he recalled. “Everyone knew if you worked at Brough you were in a hi-tech sector. That’s still there now. My father Brian worked on the site in the logistics department and my brother Mike still works here today.

“I’ve always been Brough-based, although I have had sabbaticals at other sites. During my apprenticeship placement in the drawing office I realised that I didn’t want to be a draughtsman, but I discovered a new discipline called manufacturing engineering.”

So he became involved in “producing the airfix instructions” for how aeroplanes are made. It opened up a world of opportunities.

“I got my first international trip to St Louis, in the US, due to the Harrier programme,” he said. “I can remember it to this day; it was the first time I’d travelled in business class. I found that the Americans did things differently to us. During our meetings in the US, specialist after specialist would be wheeled into the room. The US had the scale to employ specialists, while the British take the multi-disciplinary approach.”

In his role as programme director for the Indian Hawk, he’s well aware that patience can be the highest virtue when it comes to dealing with different business cultures.

“I’ve made more than 100 trips to India, where we deal with the Indian air force and the aerospace industry,” he recalled.

“It’s really important to have long-term relationships in India because the bureaucracy can be time consuming and frustrating. It took 21 years from them first expressing an interest to signing a contract for Hawk.

“A big part of the future for Brough is linked to the success of the Hawk programme. The manufacturing operation, unfortunately, has had to be re-sized, but we still have a significant manufacturing operation here.

“We are coming out of a cycle of reduction on the site. We’re seeing a renaissance for the Hawk. We are competing against Italian and Korean companies and we have to make sure that we are as competitive as we can be. We know that the competition are investing heavily in their training aircraft but we are too.”

BAE’s technology can make life easier for air crew, who have to make decisions in the blink of an eye. The last thing they want is to be overwhelmed with paper-work.

“Air crew want to have a hand-held device in the cockpit, instead of copious amounts of paper,” he said.

BAE recently carried out compliance testing on a handheld tablet device for a cockpit in just 25 days, when in the past, the exercise could have taken up to two years.

“We have to invest in product development to keep ahead of the race,” he said. “I see growth in some key skill areas on the site. We are recruiting in engineering and we will also be taking on more apprentices next year.”

He confirmed that BAE Systems has been invited to take part in a competition to supply the Hawk to a European operator. BAE also listens to air crews through channels such as the Hawk User Group.

“It’s like the Hawk owners club, where we get pilots and maintenance staff together from around the world to meet and talk about the Hawk,” he said.

“We listen to customer feedback, and where we see common threads, we spend money on research and development in those areas. Often air forces thinking is limited to what they have today, and we can suggest where today’s technology could take them.”

A lot of the work is linked to new mission systems.

He said that air forces are seeing the emergence of a “Nintendo” generation; student pilots who can manipulate data and devices more quickly because they are used to video games.

“We have been through extremely difficult times,” Mr Corfield added. “We never want to see repeated what has happened over the last two years. We have to shift the focus to the future, and build on the successful work being done today.”

In September, five technical apprentices joined the staff at Brough. Mr Corfield would love to see them follow his career path.

“One of the first things I had to do when I became site director was present graduation certificates to the latest apprentices,’’ he said.

“Back in 1978, I never dreamed I would ever be doing that. If you set your mind to it, everything is possible in a large organisation.”

Factfile

Name: Dave Corfield

Title: Head of Hawk India and Brough Site Director, BAE Systems

Date of birth: December 23, 1961

Education: HND Mechanical Engineering

First job: Technician Apprentice, Hawker Siddley

Last book read: Escape Artist by Mat Seaton

Favourite film: I don’t have one

Favourite song: Anything by Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel.

Car driven: BMW X3 but I much prefer my Look 585 bike!

Favourite holiday destination: Cycling in the French Alps

Most proud of: The arrival of the first pair of Indian Hawks at AFS Bidar