State of Georgia's Number One Export?

[GeeBee]

Not peaches or pecans. Civilian aircraft and aircraft parts. I had no idea. 800 aerospace companies producing 53 billion in exports. Of course there are a few ( I think 3) civilian C-130Js rolling off the assembly line in Marietta, and a whole bunch of Maules and Thrush's. Then you have Delta's Rolls Royce shop doing all the big Rolls engines. 53.6 billion. Fifth largest in the US without a major large airframe assembly plant like SC, WA or AL. 

 

[Ragsf15e]

Gulfstream?

[GeeBee]

2 hours ago, Ragsf15e said:

Gulfstream?

Forgot about them, but yes, they should be included and a big part!

[Hank]

Probably still making parts in Marietta, even if not still producing C-5 Galaxies. And didn't @A64Pilot build ag planes in S. GA? Wonder how many Tier 1 & 2 suppliers for USAF, Boeing and Lockheed are scattered around too?

[GeeBee]

10 minutes ago, Hank said:

Probably still making parts in Marietta, even if not still producing C-5 Galaxies. And didn't @A64Pilot build ag planes in S. GA? Wonder how many Tier 1 & 2 suppliers for USAF, Boeing and Lockheed are scattered around too?

Actually Marietta produced not only the C-130, and the C-5, but the F-22 Raptor and of course......Al Mooney's JetStar.

[A64Pilot]

12 hours ago, GeeBee said:

Forgot about them, but yes, they should be included and a big part!

They are I’m sure the biggest part by a large margin. Huge margin, All the BizJet manufacturers I believe are sold out for years or used to be anyway, they are the only very profitable part of aviation and Gulfstream is up near the top.

Maule exists only because they have no debt so if they can sell an airplane every now and again or build a few parts they can get by, because they don’t have a big debt. Long ago they became the only GA manufacturer that was still owned by the family that started the business. A couple of them are a pain but the majority are nice country types, good people.

Thrush comes and goes largely based on commodity pricing, at our best we built one a week and at times there were months that we built none, but as we had very little debt we could handle the down times, the President / Owner passed away, his silent partner moved in took over and started accruing debt believing he was going to get rich, just needed to automate everything, Thrush went bankrupt of course but rose again as there is an Ag market, and it is a good solid well respected airframe. I retired because I saw what was coming and didn’t want to be around when the inevitable became obvious for all the finger pointing and drama etc., so the day my youngest graduated High School was pretty close to my last day. I wore several hats, VP, Test Pilot, Product Support, I ran manufacturing and Engineering, Accountable Manager for the Repair Station etc.

Thrush has been there since 1965 and the majority of the people in the town of Albany have never heard of it, it’s not that big of a Company, maybe when properly staffed less than 200 people. When I ran the line we could produce 1 a week working hard with some overtime with 85 actual people on the plant floor, when I left there were over 200 and they couldn’t produce one a week.

 A Group tried to restart production of the little Grumman aircraft, they were going to build in Valdosta, probably a smart place because of the AirForce base, you could hire kids getting out of the AF. I was going to help them as I could build parts under my PC but they never got their financing together, I think they were like most attempted aviation start ups, they had a plan, only didn’t have any money. Skilled Labor was my biggest problem, the little there is doesn’t want to live in Albany Ga and I don’t blame them, I was having to hire anyone that was willing to learn, which wasn’t common.

Thrush and Maule are to my knowledge the only what we think of as GA manufacturers, Maule is on life support, has been for years and Thrush is a shadow of what it was back in the heyday. At one time Rockwell was turning out one a day, quickly stopped buying engines etc, parked them everywhere they could and after a couple of months there was a big lay off, they maybe could build one a day, but they couldn’t sell one a day even in the heyday. Rockwell never got the production rate they wanted, the built several aircraft in Albany, the Meyers 200, the Lark, Darter and Quail, and of course the Thrush. Word is every couple of months the Jet Commander would come in from Corporate and drop off the new plant manager.

North American Rockwell was big and rich, they built the P-51, the F-82 and several other aircraft, the Apollo capsule etc. They divested themselves of GA manufacturing believing the real future money was in Space manufacturing I was told. While it appears the real money is building private Jets, who knew?

Scaling is a big problem I believe in GA manufacturing, always has been, the numbers you can sell will never get to the economy of scale needed to truly automate and drive down costs. Even back in 1946 Cessna was I think building a C-140 every fifteen minutes and quickly stacked them everywhere, everyone that wanted one got two etc, great little airplane as was economical too, just the demand didn’t materlize. So I think the future if there is one is in staying small and going with small batches, CNC, possibly 3D printing maybe etc, think Super car manufacturing numbers?

[Hank]

8 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

So I think the future if there is one is in staying small and going with small batches, CNC, possibly 3D printing maybe etc, think Super car manufacturing numbers?

Super car production numbers, and sadly, super car prices, too.

Quite an interesting history, larger and more varied than I had thought.

[A64Pilot]

A few pics from 1965, the original aircraft line up, the Thrush and Commander 200 came soon after.

A 6 pax version of the Commander 200 (Meyers 200) notice the different tail, never Certified

The Meyers production line.

I don’t have a pic of the Interceptor 400, which was a pressurized 250 kt four passenger turbine, that was Certified I believe in the 60’s but it could have been the early 70’s but I believe by that time Aero Commander was giving up on aircraft production, they sold the plant and the Thrush TC to Fred Ayres.