The Ampaspace subsidiary of PPG Industries (NYSE: PPG) has been awarded a sole-source contract by EADS Socata to design and manufacture landing- and taxi-light lenses for the Airbus A400M military transport.

Ampaspace will produce the polycarbonate panels with Aegis coating at its Casaletto Vaprio, Italy, facility near Milan, with delivery of production parts beginning later this year, according to Patrick Maillefert, PPG Aerospace senior account manager.

"Ampaspace was able to meet Socata's needs for designing the parts and developing tooling," Maillefert said. "Ampaspace's history of supplying stretched-acrylic and polycarbonate transparencies for European military applications enabled us to design the parts to perform within the rigors of the aircraft's operating environment."

Proprietary Aegis hard coating applied to the exterior of the polycarbonate lenses will enhance service life by affording resistance to scratching and ultraviolet and environmental deterioration, Maillefert said. In addition, the coating will block X-rays for covert operation.

Ampaspace will produce the lenses with an outboard retainer that attaches to the body fairings by a synthetic premix Z-retainer.

Maillefert said prototypes for flight evaluation have been delivered to EADS Socata's facilities at Aeroport de Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrenees in Tarbes, France. The contract calls for Ampaspace to supply shipsets of two pairs each of landing- and taxi-light lenses.