SIC 3721 Aircraft
SIC 3721
This category includes establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing or assembling complete aircraft. This industry also includes establishments owned by aircraft manufacturers and primarily engaged in research and development on aircraft, whether from enterprise funds or on a contract or fee basis. Also included are establishments engaged in repairing and rebuilding aircraft on a factory basis. Establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing engines and other aircraft parts and auxiliary equipment are classified in SIC 3724: Aircraft Engines and Engine Parts and SIC 3728: Aircraft Parts and Auxiliary Equipment, Not Elsewhere Classified. Establishments primarily engaged in the repair of aircraft, except on a factory basis, are classified in SIC 4581: Airports, Flying Fields, and Airport Terminal Services; and research and development on aircraft by establishments not owned by aircraft manufacturers are classified in SIC 8731: Commercial Physical and Biological Research.
336411
Aircraft Manufacturing
The aerospace industry consists of space vehicles, space propulsion parts, guided missiles, aircraft, aircraft engines, and aircraft parts. The value of all products and services of the aircraft industry alone was approximately 80 percent of the aerospace industry total in the mid-2000s. The production and sale of civil and military aircraft further constitutes about 65 percent of the total aircraft industry's value. Civil aircraft sector sales (engines and parts) accounts for the remainder of the aircraft segment of the aerospace industry.
Negative conditions within the air transportation sector, due in part to a decrease in travel following the terrorist attacks against the United Sates on September 11, 2001, affected aircraft manufacturing during the early years of the 2000s. However, by 2004 airline traffic numbers finally topped pre-9/11 levels, and the industry was poised for a period of growth. While military spending was fueling growth in the mid-2000s, commercial sales were expected to be important in the longer-term.
By the mid-2000s, Boeing, suffering from reduced sales and deliveries caused by significant industry slowdown during the early 2000s, had fallen behind France's Airbus as the world leader in aircraft manufacturing. In 2004 Airbus delivered 320 aircraft, compared to Boeing's 285.
American aircraft companies provide airplanes for three distinct markets: the military, commercial aviation, and general aviation, which includes business aviation. From the end of World War II until the collapse of the Soviet threat in 1989, the American military services had a voracious appetite for sophisticated aircraft, which American firms sought to satisfy. This 49-year boom in military spending guaranteed the health of many manufacturers and allowed them to devote resources to research and development, ensuring that American aircraft would be the most technologically advanced in the world. The end of the cold war, which reduced military spending in the United States and around the world, provided the greatest challenge for American aircraft manufacturers, who had grown accustomed to lucrative Department of Defense contracts.
The development of commercial aircraft posed far greater risks than that of military aircraft. The development process for a passenger airliner capable of carrying several hundred people was both lengthy and costly, requiring manufacturers to anticipate the needs of airlines far in advance and to gamble vast amounts of money on the product's success. For this reason Boeing canceled its development of the super jumbo aircraft. Manufacturers usually designed new or modified aircraft in response to the demands of carriers, who typically asked for more fuel efficiency and more seating rather than major redesigns. The Economist estimated that a new medium-sized airliner cost more than $2.0 billion to develop, with engines costing another $1.5 billion.
As a result of the risks involved, commercial aircraft manufacturers were rather conservative, pursuing modifications on existing airframes rather than reinventing complete aircraft, and most existing commercial airliners changed little in the last half of the twentieth century. However, some exciting new aircraft developments occurred in the areas of speed, range, capacity, and efficiency. Given the tremendous financial risks associated with developing new aircraft, by the early 2000s many manufacturers worked cooperatively, jointly developing a design and dividing work among partners if the design was successful. The development of a new aircraft might involve many dozens of companies, each contributing some portion of a plane that it had perfected. The merger of two leading aircraft companies, Boeing Company of Seattle, Washington, and the McDonnell Douglas Company of St. Louis, Missouri, resulted in economies of operation in a number of areas. In a calculated risk, Boeing canceled its plans to develop a super jumbo jet and concentrated instead on long range, fuel-efficient planes with a modestly higher passenger capacity, citing the ratio of development costs to demand as justification. Airbus continued to pursue the super jumbo concept.
Though military and commercial aircraft manufacturers dominated the industry in the early 2000s, American companies also produced a number of aircraft for the general aviation and the helicopter market segments, which included fixed wing aircraft and rotorcraft for business transportation, regional airline service, recreation, specialized uses such as ambulance service and agricultural spraying, and training. American manufacturers historically produced about 60 percent of the world's general aviation aircraft and 30 percent of the helicopters. The major U.S. manufacturers of general aviation aircraft are the Beech Aircraft Corp., Fairchild Aircraft Inc., the Cessna Aircraft Co., Gulfstream Aerospace, and Learjet Inc.
Most aircraft manufacturers derive a significant proportion of their profits from the production of replacement and upgrade parts for their airplanes. Since large commercial jets represent such a large investment—a new twin-engine passenger jet may cost several hundred million dollars—airlines try to keep them in the air for many years. Moreover, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sets stringent guidelines on repair and replacement procedures for passenger aircraft. Manufacturers provide parts through a network of suppliers and subcontractors, which comprise SIC 3728: Aircraft Parts, Not Elsewhere Classified.
The American aircraft manufacturing industry traces its origin to one of the seminal events of the twentieth century: the Wright brothers' first powered flight in 1903. While many others had flown with gliders, balloons, and dirigibles, Wilbur and Orville Wright marked a tremendous breakthrough with powered flight, because they proved the dynamics of flying a wing. In cross section, a wing is flat on the bottom but curved on top. As a wing moves through the air, air passing over the wing is forced to travel a greater distance than air passing under the wing. This difference causes a pocket of low pressure that literally sucks the wing up into the air. In order to work, the wing must be driven forward or powered. These principles were described years before the Wrights' flight by Samuel P. Langley, a luckless professor whose aviation experiments were either ignored or were failures.
The Wrights originally hoped to sell airplanes to the United States Army as battlefield reconnaissance devices. The idea of employing aircraft to attack or drop bombs had not yet occurred to anyone. One of those on hand to witness the Wright brothers' first demonstration for the Army was a young conscript named Donald Douglas. Despite several impressive flights, Army officials were unmoved. The Wrights took their show to Europe, where they flew for the German, French, and British armies. In the process, they prompted interest with such European aviation pioneers as Louis Blériot, Willy Messerschmidt, Anthony Fokker, and Marcel Dassault.
Aviation was immediately embraced in Europe as a powerful new force in warfare, but it also made for good entertainment. Blériot and others such as Louis Paulhan built their own airplanes and began touring flying circuses. During 1910 and 1911, these European aviators toured the United States, flying before garage tinkerers like Glenn Martin, Clyde Cessna, Glenn Curtiss, and Bill Boeing. Curtiss, a motorcycle repairman, was immediately drawn to flight, and he had access to the lightweight engines needed to power aircraft. Curtiss was one of the first to mount a propeller on the front of the aircraft in a "tractor" design. Until that time, propellers had been rear-mounted "pusher" models, which are still found on some aircraft today, particularly amphibians.
After several of the Army's Wright planes crashed, killing the pilots, the Army found a new supplier in Curtiss, who escaped the enforcement of the Wrights' patents by incorporating the first ailerons. Curtiss thus emerged as the nation's leading aircraft manufacturer and the new supplier of choice to the Army.
Wilbur Wright died in 1912, leaving his brother in charge of their company. A poor manager, Orville Wright naively sold the company and its patents to a group of financiers led by William Boyce Thompson.
With the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914, Germany and France were quick to apply aviation to the battlefield, producing the world's first aces, Roland Garros and Manfred von Richtofen. The United States Army embraced air power in 1914 by creating an aviation group within the Signal Corps. One of its...
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