Professional Pilot, October 2018

Beech Cessna and Learjet As the curtain quickly dropped on what had been a golden age of business aviation for Wichita Cessna Beechcraft and Bombardier Learjet were forced to react swiftly to the industrys new reality At its peak in early 2008 of 22000 workers at those facilities the number had dropped to 13500 less than 2 years later and continued to fall according to the Wichita Business Journal A struggling Beech Aircraft was acquired by Textron in 2013 to be folded in with Cessna to form what is now Textron Aviation Cessna canceled plans in 2009 to design and build the Columbus which had been earmarked to become the companys largest model ever Beech restricted product development to upgrades of its venerable King Air series while Learjet suspended the Learjet 60XR program in 2012 and canceled its Model 85 program in 2015 106 PROFESSIONAL PILOT October 2018 Hunkering down was nothing new for these business aviation stalwarts they had been through this many times before Troubled times at Wichitas original equipment manufacturers OEMs also brought stress throughout their area supply chain Just over 100 aerospace subcontractors are located in the 5 county Wichita metro area In the peak year of 2007 combined employment among these subs was just under 5000 according to the Greater Wichita Partnership economic development organization which tracks this data After dropping to a low point of just over 4000 workers 3 years after the fall employment at these subcontracting firms stood at about 5300 in 2017 the most recent year with available data This number of course was bolstered by increasing work from Spirit Subcontracting at Lee Aerospace Jim Lee is CEO of Wichitas Lee Aerospace one of the areas largest subs currently employing 260 Historic major customers have been Textron Aviation Bombardier Learjet and Spirit AeroSystems Lee saw his firm go into the recession at 180 employees before hitting a bottom of 85 With his company primarily engaged in manufacturing windows for general aviation through commercial aircraft as well as aerostructure assemblies Lee immediately reached out for new capabilities to fill the void He got into composite manufacturing and is now building metallic and composite structures for Boeing 787s through Spirit He also took on producing windows for the Cirrus jet added work for Piper and is building the Twin Otter fuselage for Canadas Viking Air New successful aircraft by Textron Aviation As the industry slowly got its used aircraft inventory under control and new orders began to trickle onto the books Wichitas stalwart OEMs began to get their feet under themselves a few years ago Textron Aviation designed and built both the Latitude and Longitude models as top of its distinguished lineup of Citations Scott Ernest has been CEO of first Cessna Aircraft then Textron Aviation since 2011 He has managed the company through nearly a decade of recession and has ushered in several key new products Primary activities at Wichita subcontractor Lee Aerospace include building airframes for Viking Air above and installing windshields for general aviation aircraft With an all new design the Cessna Denali was announced in 2015 It will soon begin flight testing with deliveries scheduled to begin in 2019 More than 100 Cessna Citation Latitude aircraft have been delivered since its market introduction in 2015 Featuring a 3500 nm range the Cessna Citation Longitude first flew in 2016 Deliveries are expected to begin later this year Photos courtesy Lee Aerospace Photos courtesy Textron Aviation