Drawing on primary and secondary sources on the aircraft industry, this report provides a brief survey of industry structure, innovation, and competition in the U.S. fixed-wing combat aircraft industry from its earliest days to the present. It supports a much larger research effort examining the future of the structure, innovation, and competition of the U.S. military aircraft industrial base that responds to congressional concerns about that future.

In 1945 confidence in British aviation was sky-high. Yet decades later, the industry had not lived up to its potential. What happened? The years that followed the war saw the Brabazon Committee issue flawed proposals for civil aviation planning. Enforced cancellations restricted the advancement of military aircraft, compounded later on by Defence Minister Duncan Sandys abandoning aircraft to fixate solely on missiles. Commercially, Britain's small and neglected domestic market hindered the development of civilian airliners. In the production of notorious aircraft, the inauspicious Comet came from de Havilland's attempts to gain an edge over its American competitors. The iconic Harrier jump jet and an indigenous crop of helicopters were squandered, while unrealistic performance requirements brought about the cancellation of TSR2. Peter Reese explores how repeated financial crises, a lack of rigour and fatal self-satisfaction led British aviation to miss vital opportunities across this turbulent period in Britain's skies.

This book is about change, about its challenges and the talent necessary to drive it through. Specifically, it is about transforming the world's most important and event-shaping industry - aviation. Giovanni Bisignani became Director General of IATA (International Air Transport Association) in June 2002, just after 9/11, which created one of the greatest threats ever to the aviation industry. IATA is the central body of the world's airlines, responsible for its financial ($300 billion/year) clearing system, ticketing, government lobbying, passenger safety policies, landing rights and the future of commercial flying. During his 10 years as Director General, Bisignani implemented and oversaw enormous and controversial changes in aviation. This book is the inside story of the struggle for survival in one of the world's most dynamic industries.

In this extraordinary tale of union democracy, Dana L. Cloud engages union reformers at Boeing in Wichita and Seattle to reveal how ordinary workers attempted to take command of their futures by chipping away at the cozy partnership between union leadership and corporate management. Taking readers into the central dilemma of having to fight an institution while simultaneously using it as a bastion of basic self-defense, We Are the Union offers a sophisticated exploration of the structural opportunities and balance of forces at play in modern unions told through a highly relevant case study. Focusing on the 1995 strike at Boeing, Cloud renders a multi-layered account of the battles between company and the union and within the union led by Unionists for Democratic Change and two other dissident groups. She gives voice to the company's claims of the hardships of competitiveness and the entrenched union leaders' calls for concessions in the name of job security, alongside the democratic union reformers' fight for a rank-and-file upsurge against both the company and the union leaders. We Are the Union is grounded in on-site research and interviews and focuses on the efforts by Unionists for Democratic Change to reform unions from within. Incorporating theory and methods from the fields of organizational communication as well as labor studies, Cloud methodically uncovers and analyzes the goals, strategies, and dilemmas of the dissidents who, while wanting to uphold the ideas and ideals of the union, took up the gauntlet to make it more responsive to workers and less conciliatory toward management, especially in times of economic stress or crisis. Cloud calls for a revival of militant unionism as a response to union leaders' embracing of management and training programs that put workers in the same camp as management, arguing that reform groups should look to the emergence of powerful industrial unions in the United States for guidance on revolutionizing existing institutions and building new ones that truly accommodate workers' needs. Drawing from communication studies, labor history, and oral history and including a chapter co-written with Boeing worker Keith Thomas, We Are the Union contextualizes what happened at Boeing as an exemplar of agency that speaks both to the past and the future.

This book is a unique collection of perspectives provided by a mix of leading academics, industrialists and government officials on the challenges facing the European aerospace industry. The book focuses on two interrelated, daunting challenges. The consolidated American aerospace industry, which in the 1990s has undergone $100bn worth of merger activity. The second is the compelling task of rationalization and consolidation required in the European industry itself. Through a mix of analytical perspectives and project-oriented assessments, the book provides an essential guide to the major strategic agenda for the European industry. A unique feature is the contribution of leading industry executives and project managers. These industry insiders outline the dilemmas and challenges facing the industry from the viewpoint of those at the sharp end of the business. The book is an essential guide to the technical, political and economic agenda for aerospace in the next decade and beyond.