1980

1980’s

The global airline industry was vastly different in the 1980s from what it is today. There was a variety of fleets, passengers had more allowances (including smoking), you could carry bottles of liquids on board and a dress code was required from first class ticket holders – suffice to say it was a very different era for air travel, heavily defined by speed, affluence and largesse.

For BWT however, it was business as usual. From our new facilities in Adlington, our local, dutiful, hard-working UK team kept on honing its skills, streamlining its processes, perfecting its range of products and coming up with newer and better solutions for ducting systems. In the ‘80s, BWT was consistently receiving more and more orders from all the big aerospace companies so by end of the decade it had sold off its linings business to focus solely on air ducts.

As always, our vigorous interest in new technologies and latest product developments remained intact, and, although we kept on predominantly supplying the aircraft industry with ducting systems, we also got involved in an array of one-off specialist projects, including things as diverse as medical, motorsport and Richard Branson’s hot air ballooning exploits.

We also had a brief fling with stardom: our famous Windak heated flying suit made an appearance in Star Wars, as worn by bounty hunter Bossk in ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ (1980). This was our second film appearance, as our pressure suits and helmets were worn by the actors in the H G Wells classic science fiction film ‘First Men in the Moon’ (1964).