Firms helping to keep our military machine on track... and save lives

A military vehicle breaks down under fire. The soldiers face a terrible choice – step outside and try to change the filter, or pray that help arrives soon.

Thanks to work being carried out in Yorkshire, fewer soldiers are being placed in harm’s way through faulty engines.

Hull-based Donaldson Filter Components has created a clever device that stops military vehicles grinding to a halt, saving the lives of servicemen. The tiny filter is also saving the taxpayer millions of pounds each year.

In Beverley, another manufacturer, Cablescan, is helping to ensure that front-line troops find it easier to talk to each other. It’s also involved in a European Space Agency project that aims to stop errant satellite navigation systems sending giant lorries into picture- postcard villages.

It’s all far removed from the world of rags and spanners. Donaldson, which employs 300 staff in Hull, has invested 5m in its defence work. In Iraq it helped to keep the dust away from British military vehicle engines and it’s doing the same job in Afghanistan.

Peter Halstead, UK sales manager for the engine division of Donaldson, said: “Something as simple as a filter is helping to keep our vehicles and fighting men and women mobile.”

We need a brief history lesson to show how far Donaldson has come. In September 2003, a fleet of 208 Land Rover Snatch vehicles was sent from Northern Ireland to support British troops in Iraq.

There’s a world of difference between the terrain in Belfast and Basra, and, sure enough, the Land Rover engines became clogged up with dust. However, it was noted that US armed forces vehicles in Iraq were coping better. The reason seemed to be that the US used Donaldson’s filters.

Mr Halstead recalled: “The Land Rovers hadn’t changed their filtration design for 20 to 30 years. We worked with them to refit the whole fleet.”

Since then, more then 1,400 Land Rovers have been fitted with Donaldson’s filters, which include a nanofibre technology that stops virtually all dust getting to the engine. “This extends the life of the filter in extreme dust concentrations,’’ said Mr Halstead.

“The squaddies liked them because it was newer technology and easier to change. It eliminated the engine failures they had been experiencing.

“If you’re out on a mission and your filter blocks up, your vehicle stops. The only way you can allow air to bypass the system is to take the filter element out. It’s then exposed to all the severe dust, which immediately will break an engine.

“If the soldier’s in a battle he can’t change the filter, so he’s stuck there.

“As a result of our success with Land Rover, we got involved with Warrior, which most people know as an armoured personnel carrier. The Warrior vehicles were suffering severe engine wear in Iraq and Afghanistan. We were brought in to see if we could solve this problem.”

Mr Halstead was alarmed to discover that, on average, the filters in Warrior vehicles were only lasting about six hours. What happened, you must wonder, if they were sent out into a hostile zone for seven hours?

“If they went out on a mission, they had to ensure that they were back within six hours or else they needed to carry a filter with them,’’ Mr Halstead said.

Donaldson has quadrupled the life of the filter in the worst scenarios, which are “extreme desert conditions” with poor visibility. “The cost of the filters supplied by our predecessors were in the region of 700 each,’’ said Mr Halstead. “We’re talking 2,100 to change a Warrior air filtration system. If they went in six hours you can imagine the sort of costs they were racking up.”

Engines that don’t become clogged up with dust will last longer. This has significant implications because it costs in the region of 15,000 to 20,000 to repair a Warrior engine.

By the time the Warrior is scheduled to leave service in 2025, it’s estimated that Donaldson will have saved the taxpayer about 50m. It also means fewer used filters will end up in landfill.

Donaldson has also supplied filters to the Ministry of Defence’s Combat Vehicle Reconnaisance vehicles – light tanks – and its equipment is also being fitted to a new suite of fighting vehicles, which have suitably combative names: Jackal, Mastiff and Coyote.

Cablescan, just up the road in Beverley, is also doing its bit to keep Britain’s military running smoothly. It makes cable harnesses using wires, which are fitted in military vehicles, buses and aircraft.

“Every type of military vehicle will have our cables in it. They wouldn’t be able to communicate without them,” said Richard Willis the managing director of Cablescan, which has about 80 staff. “The key to success is being able to communicate, so each battalion knows what they are doing.

“We’re also involved in control panels for submarines. The naval establishments are re-fitting submarines to bring them up to the new capabilities.”

Cablescan has an operation in the Netherlands, which has secured a contract with the European Space Agency. “We’re making some cables that work in an environment that simulates the vacuum of space so they can test all the satellites,’’ said Mr Willis.

This work forms part of the testing process for the satellite navigation system in our cars, he added. “As more and more Satnavs are produced, you need the infrastructure to support them. We’ve tried to diversify, so we’ve got into lots of different sectors. We’ve got into motor sport, military vehicles and power generation.”

Donaldson and Cablescan secured this work with help from Northern Defence Industries, a business development company founded to help small and medium-sized businesses forge links with the defence and aerospace sector.

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