Aerospace products, manufacturers, and markets
The product line of the aerospace industry is, by necessity, broad because its primary products—flight vehicles—require up to millions of individual parts. In addition, many support systems are needed to operate and maintain the vehicles. In terms of sales, military aircraft have the largest market share, followed by space systems and civil aircraft, with missiles still a modest grouping. The industry’s customers range from private individuals to large corporations and commercial airlines, telecommunications companies, and military and other government agencies.
Because of enormous financial and technological demands, the number of manufacturers in the industry has become increasingly limited, while the average size of aerospace firms has grown through acquisition or merger. In 2000 the world’s largest aerospace companies (ranked in terms of total revenues) were Boeing, Lockheed Martin, EADS, United Technologies, Honeywell, Raytheon, Textron, and BAE Systems. Russia’s major producers included Ilyushin and Tupolev for civil aircraft, MiG and Sukhoy for military aircraft, and Energia for space launch vehicles.
Civil aircraft
Builders of civil aircraft comprise two categories: producers of general aviation aircraft and producers of heavy aircraft. General aviation is defined as all aircraft activities not related to military, major airline, or air-cargo flying. It includes light planes and helicopters used for private pleasure flying, personal transportation, corporate travel, and short-haul commercial transportation, such as air taxis and commuter airliners, with low takeoff weights. Also encompassed are specialized aircraft such as agricultural sprayers, acrobatic craft, sailplanes, motor gliders, air ambulances, fire-control aircraft, pipeline-patrol aircraft, and others with a broad variety of civil applications. The category of heavy aircraft comprises commercial transports and cargo planes.
General aviation aircraft
By far the world’s largest market for general aviation aircraft is the United States, with about 190,000 such aircraft (more than 70 percent single-piston-engine types) in active use in the late 1990s. Annually, these aircraft accounted for more than 27 million flight hours (nearly two times the flight hours of U.S. airlines) and 145 million passengers. Private airplanes used typically for personal transportation, sport, or training represent a market highly driven by the economy. In the United States the cost of a new aircraft—for example, a kit for an ultralight powered plane or sailplane—can be as low as that of a low-priced automobile.
In 1978 more than 100 American companies produced some 17,800 piston-engine and turboprop general aviation aircraft. Due to judicial interpretation of U.S. product liability laws in a landmark case that year, manufacturers were put in legal jeopardy even for pilot-caused and weather-induced problems and regardless of maintenance or modifications to the aircraft. As a result, the industry experienced a major downturn. In its worst year, 1993, only 960 aircraft were sold, and only a few active producers remained in the United States.
One response to this situation was the establishment of companies furnishing kits for aircraft, which required only experimental certificates and for which the liability could be limited to the individual building the airplane or glider. In 1994 the U.S. General Aviation Revitalization Act limited the liability of general aircraft manufacturers to 18 years after a product is placed into service. As a result, Cessna (a subsidiary of Textron since 1992), which had stopped production of piston-engine aircraft in 1986, restarted its four-seat monoplane lines that were popular in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. Meanwhile, the substantial general aviation aircraft industry outside the United States capitalized on the limited American supply. Active firms include Pilatus in Switzerland, Robin in France, Let and Zlin in the Czech Republic, Grob in Germany, Hagfors in Sweden, PZL Mielec in Poland, and Diamond in Canada.
Among leading companies in the corporate aircraft market are the Canadian manufacturer Bombardier; the American firms Gulfstream (part of General Dynamics), Raytheon, and Cessna (see Textron Inc.); and France’s Dassault. In the late 1990s the business jet market experienced an unprecedented growth due to a combination of factors. New models coupled with new technologies, a booming economy, and fractional ownership (time sharing) created a big market demand. In 1996 Boeing entered the high-end corporate aircraft business by forming the Boeing Business Jets (BBJ) joint venture with General Electric and offering a long-range business version of its 737-700 airliner. The following year, Airbus announced plans to offer the Airbus Corporate Jet (ACJ) based on its A319 airliner.