History

P.O. BOX 1058 3640 SEMINARY ROAD
ALTON ILLINOIS U.S.A. 62002 (618)465-8892 FAX (618)465-3195 contact@hanleyindustries.com

Hanley Industries was incorporated in 1958 by Gaynor Blake when he saw the need for private industry to supply explosive devices for the rapidly expanding military equipment and aircraft market. There was at the time little equipment available outside certain Army arsenals where standard devices were produced for ground operations, ejection seats and other field equipment.

Gaynor Blake quickly brought together associates who had, in combined years, more knowledge and history in the field of explosives and pyrotechnics than most other companies existing at the time. Loading and building explosive components was a mysterious and little known field. The knowledge existed mainly in arsenals and fuse manufacturing companies who loaded explosives because few other sources were available. With their background Hanley quickly became a source for explosive components for artillery and bomb fuses.

With the onset of the Cold War, the market expanded for jet aircraft with associated weaponry and an emerging market for rockets. The speed of jet aircraft brought on the need to explosively expel bombs away from the aircraft to get it away from the plane and on target. The need for electrically initiated hot gas generating cartridges developed. Hanley had the skill and knowledge to build hot wire igniters and pressure cartridges to supply this need.

Concomitantly, aircraft speed would not allow a pilot to climb out of a disabled aircraft or bail out over the side. He could not escape the tail. Moreover, jet aircraft have insufficient wing surface to glide to lower altitudes. With such abrupt descent "g" forces disable pilots producing extreme difficulty in movement. It now required that pilots be forcibly ejected from an airplane.

Explosives and propellants, even today, are the only materials fast enough to provide for emergency egress. The expired time from when a pilot pulls the ejection handle until he is clear of the tail is just 1½ seconds. During that 1½ seconds many timing events and functions must happen in fractions of a second. Hanley possessed the ability to again provide explosive primers, igniters, pyrotechnic delays, pressure cartridges and initiators for explosive and cartridge actuated devices.

miniaturization of explosive components. Igniters, initiators and detonators are one tenth the size they were just a few years ago. Hanley over years has developed automatic loading equipment that installs precise charges of a few milligrams at a time. Yet, these same elements can start and sustain explosive detonations and events recently not thought possible.

Hanley has actively participated in the introduction of new materials and loading techniques for military products. We offer highest quality explosive components for man rated field and aerospace equipment, artillery and bomb fuses, initiators and priming elements for everything from the diminutive to the huge. Miniature electrically initiated detonators smaller by half than a pencil eraser to explosive bolts for space launch vehicle have been produced. Stab primers less than a tenth inch diameter to electric primers for the 5"/62 caliber naval gun are being manufactured.