Future of the Aerospace Industry in the USA

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bdewoody

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Now that we are down to basically two aerospace manufacturers in the USA and the likelyhood that one or both of the next generation of fighters will be cancelled along with the lack of orders for commercial aircraft will we loose the skills necessary to design and build the air/spacecraft of the future? Or will we end up just being able to keep what we've already got maintained and flyable into the foreseeable future?
 
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scottb50

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bdewoody":gv733f3g said:
Now that we are down to basically two aerospace manufacturers in the USA and the likelyhood that one or both of the next generation of fighters will be cancelled along with the lack of orders for commercial aircraft will we loose the skills necessary to design and build the air/spacecraft of the future? Or will we end up just being able to keep what we've already got maintained and flyable into the foreseeable future?

Since a major portion of maintenance is already out-sourced we may be able to hang on to the refueling and cabin cleaning jobs. As far as manufacturing I have serious doubts. The C-17 design was inherited and was 15 years old before being put into production, the 787 out sourced everything and they don't have the engineering capability to work fixes for the problems, having expected to just assemble completed components with minimal labor skills and costs.

On the other side both Boeing and Airbus are ignoring the most profitable sector of the market while Embraer, the Chinese, Russians and Japanese are saturating the bread and butter market. Hopefully the long haul, high capacity markets will keep them in business, though it is the 737 and A-320 families doing that now.
 
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