A CLUTCH of huge orders has continued a week of good news for East Lancashire aerospace factories.

Major contracts for the Airbus programme and Rolls-Royce engines have been announced at the Farnborough Air Show on top of the news of the UK's green light for production of the Eurofighter.

Europe's Airbus plane-making consortium received a £2 billion boost with major orders for new aircraft.

British Aerospace has a 20 per cent stake in Airbus and the Samlesbury site manufactures leading and trailing edges for several of its aircraft.

Giant American delivery company Federal Express has ordered 11 new Airbus A330 freighter aircraft in a deal worth more than £720 million. Airbus also announced two more firm orders. The first, worth about £650 million, was from Asiana Airlines of South Korea, which has ordered 18 of the new generation single-aisle A321's.

The other new firm order is worth about £250 million and is from Far Eastern carrier Cathay Pacific Airways for three A340s.

Airbus also announced it had signed a deal with German holiday airline Condor for six A320's and six A321's in a deal potentially worth about £360 million - taking the consortium's Farnborough business past the £2 billion mark.

And Rolls-Royce, which employs more than 800 in East Lancashire has clinched two orders worth a total of £135 million.

The company said it would share in an order for V2500 engines made by the International Aero Engines consortium of which Rolls is a member. The firm's Barnoldswick site manufactures wide chord fan blades for the V2500.

Several East Lancashire firms, including Lynx Engineering of Barrowford, are exhibiting at Farnborough for the first time this year.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.