October 7, 2026 - No. 40 In This Issue : US regulator finds Boeing 737 MAX software bug 'not a safety concern' : GE Aerospace raises F110 fighter engine output 50% through manufacturing investment and measures to ease supply bottlenecks : Stratolaunch Expands Hypersonic Flight Test Infrastructure with Acquisition of Boeing 777 Carrier Aircraft : Heat-only method makes critical alloys tougher for nuclear fusion reactors and jet engines : U.S. Air Force moves to upgrade aging E-3 AWACS planes : What goes into a Boeing plane? : F-47 Production Line Is Near: Boeing Ramps Up 6th-Generation Fighter Push : Texas A&M students build 50-pound drone that lifts 110 pounds : NASA Testing Aims at Supercooled Large Droplet Aviation Safety : Addressing the shortage of aviation maintenance technicians US regulator finds Boeing 737 MAX software bug 'not a safety concern' AFP Fri, 2 October 2026 at 7:48 pm GMT-5 Aerospace giant Boeing has staked its corporate turnaround in part on growth of 737 MAX production (Toby Shepheard) A software bug that delayed the US certification of Boeing's 737 MAX 10 aircraft does not pose a safety concern, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Friday after an investigation. The glitch was found in a cockpit software update to the plane model and can cause an automated navigation feature to fail when planes shift their approach to landing. "Following a thorough review, a panel of FAA safety experts on Friday determined a software issue in certain Boeing 737 MAX flight computers is not a safety concern," the US regulatory agency said in a statement. The FAA's review board reached this conclusion about the software bug's safety "because pilots retain full control of the aircraft and the indications to the flight crew are clear and unambiguous." "As with any situation, the FAA will consider appropriate action if it receives new information about this issue." Boeing will also send a bulletin to airlines detailing the issue and instructing employees how to recognize and respond to the situation should it take place. "We will continue to follow the lead of the FAA as our engineers work on the next software update," Boeing said in a statement to AFP. The aerospace giant on Monday said it had "informed all 737 operators about a software issue where pilots may not have access to automated flight guidance during a specific landing scenario." Boeing on Friday added that it was working to formalize a procedure with airlines that would allow pilots to restore automated flight guidance in case the glitch occurs. Despite the FAA review, neither the regulator nor Boeing said whether the certification process for the 737 MAX 10 would be unfrozen. The model is the last of four 737 MAX planes to receive regulator certification to enter service. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said Monday at a press conference that the MAX planes certified by the FAA thus far are safe but that "we will be delaying the 10 until... we're satisfied we don't have an issue here." GE Aerospace raises F110 fighter engine output 50% through manufacturing investment and measures to ease supply bottlenecks By Martin Chomsky (Defence Industry Europe) Corporate | October 4, 2026 Photo: U.S. Air Force. GE Aerospace says output of its F110 fighter engine has risen 50% year over year since the second quarter of 2025. The increase follows investments in manufacturing, closer work with suppliers and the use of artificial intelligence to identify production risks earlier. The F110 powers the F-15EX and F-16, and GE Aerospace says the improvements position it to meet growing U.S. Air Force and allied demand. Total defense engine output increased 15% in the first half of 2026. Since 2023, GE Aerospace has invested more than $600 million in manufacturing at its defense facilities. It has also committed more than $100 million to external suppliers for tooling and equipment to expand capacity and stabilize production schedules. Those investments extend across multiple defense engine lines. The company is also establishing additional sources for critical components and upgrading parts needed to support higher production rates. Over the past two years, GE Aerospace has worked with suppliers to make demand more predictable and deployed engineering and quality personnel to address bottlenecks. The company says this gives it a clearer view of its supply chain and more opportunity to resolve problems before they delay deliveries. Castings remain a constraint across the industry, prompting GE Aerospace to pursue additional capacity through an agreement to acquire Consolidated Precision Products. The company says the planned acquisition is one part of its response and that external suppliers will remain central to meeting demand. Technicians used AI on the F404 and F110 production lines this year to identify supply-chain risks, gaps and potential bottlenecks earlier. GE Aerospace says the work has improved material flow, supplier readiness and coordination. “Artificial intelligence is changing how we build and sustain the F110,” said Shawn Warren, vice president and general manager of combat and trainer engines in GE Aerospace’s Defense & Systems business. “It’s giving our teams the ability to see problems before they become delays, and to move faster without sacrificing the reliability our Air Force customers depend on.” GE Aerospace has also expanded AI-enabled predictive maintenance. Through a deeper partnership with Palantir, it is deploying agentic AI to support aircraft sustainment decisions and streamline production. The company’s FLIGHT DECK operating model guides efforts to eliminate waste, improve production flow and address delivery gaps. On the F110 line, that work includes engineering support and collaboration with suppliers. During a recent weeklong improvement effort, the team cut overall production lead time for the F110 high-pressure compressor forward shaft by roughly 60%. It consolidated key processes and shortened the distances operators traveled inside the facility, with further improvements planned across the production line. The F110 has accumulated more than 11 million flight hours over its 40-year evolution. GE Aerospace says it has upgraded 90% of the engine’s parts through new materials, advanced coatings and improved manufacturing and inspection processes. The production line also uses additive manufacturing. In 2021, the U.S. Air Force qualified an F110 sump cover that GE Aerospace describes as the first engine component designed and produced using metal 3D printing to receive airworthiness approval from a U.S. Department of Defense entity. “Forty years in, the F110 keeps getting better, because we keep investing in it,” Warren said. “From AI on the production floor to FLIGHT DECK on the shop floor, every improvement we make comes back to one goal: getting engines to our Air Force customers faster, and keeping them flying longer.” Stratolaunch Expands Hypersonic Flight Test Infrastructure with Acquisition of Boeing 777 Carrier Aircraft MOJAVE, Calif. – Sept. 30, 2026 – Stratolaunch, a leading pure-play hypersonics company, today announced it has acquired a Boeing 777-200ER, expanding Stratolaunch’s fleet of carrier aircraft supporting the company’s Talon-A autonomous, reusable, air-launched hypersonic flight test platforms. The addition of the Boeing 777 strengthens the company’s flight test infrastructure, increasing global reach and flight capacity to address customer demand, while also enhancing the company’s ability to offer additional services. The acquisition represents another important expansion of Stratolaunch’s fleet of carrier aircraft and complements the company’s existing carrier assets, the Spirit of Mojave and Roc. With three carrier aircraft, Stratolaunch will be well positioned to maintain continuous launch readiness, boosting overall flight capacity by 35%. The addition of the Boeing 777 carrier aircraft also increases the company’s global deployment capabilities, supporting operations wherever needed around the world. This expanded fleet supports broader mission profiles, reduces scheduling constraints and accelerates the ability to scale flight operations, including conducting parallel missions. “As demand for hypersonic technologies continues to grow, we’re building the operational scale to make routine hypersonic testing a reality for our customers around the world,” said Zachary Krevor, President and CEO of Stratolaunch. “Adding the reliability of a Boeing 777 aircraft to our fleet enhances our flight flexibility and strengthens our long-term capacity as we work to provide the nation and our customers with the test cadence needed to accelerate hypersonic innovation. We look forward to operationalizing the aircraft and expanding our capability to serve customers at the scale and speed required to address hypersonic national security needs.” The aircraft will undergo modifications to enable the air launch of Stratolaunch’s reusable, fully autonomous Talon-A hypersonic test vehicles from its fuselage, with completion expected in 2027. Stratolaunch’s carrier aircraft take Talon-A to altitude before it is air-launched, effectively providing a reusable first stage for hypersonic flight. Compared with traditional ground-launch systems, this approach offers greater range, lower mission costs, flexible deployment and the ability to execute more representative real-world flight profiles. The acquisition builds on a series of milestones achieved over the past year. In July 2026, the company announced it had surpassed more than 10 successful hypersonic flights with its Talon-A platform, following its February 2026 announcement of a $90.8M contract award under the Department of War Test Resource Management Center (TRMC) Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonics Test Bed (MACH-TB) for air-launched capability test vehicles. Together, these achievements reinforce the company’s commitment to enabling faster, more affordable and more responsive hypersonic test development. Serving government and commercial customers, Stratolaunch aims to expand America’s hypersonic testing infrastructure and deliver the vital flight data needed to develop next-generation technologies for national deterrence. Heat-only method makes critical alloys tougher for nuclear fusion reactors and jet engines The innovative method utilizes controlled thermal stress. By Aman Tripathi Energy Oct 01, 2026 11:16 AM EST This development could transform high-performance parts production. (Representational image) University of Birmingham Future fusion reactors and commercial jet engines share a common challenge: their critical parts must endure punishing heat and stress without cracking. Building materials tough enough for these extreme conditions usually demand heavy industrial processing, such as repeatedly rolling or forging hot metal. Researchers at the University of Birmingham have discovered that heat alone can transform the internal structure of stubborn alloys. The breakthrough could fundamentally change how engineers produce tough, high-performance parts. The fundamental principle behind the advance is grain size control. All metals are made of microscopic grains. When these grains are coarse and broad, microcracks can easily run through them, causing sudden structural failure. When the grains are tiny and packed tightly together, their boundaries act like defensive barriers that stop cracks in their tracks. Traditionally, shrinking these grains required violent mechanical force. Using controlled thermal stress The new approach, named Precipitation Induced Recrystallisation (PIX), replaces physical force with controlled thermal stress. During heat treatment, nanoscale regions with slightly different atomic spacing begin to precipitate within the alloy. Because the crystal grids of these regions do not match their surroundings perfectly, they generate intense elastic strain throughout the metal. This internal pressure eventually forces the microstructure to recrystallize on its own, spawning fresh, dramatically finer grains from within. U.S. Air Force moves to upgrade aging E-3 AWACS planes NewsAviation By Colton Jones Sep 26, 2026 E-3G Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft. Photo by Greg L. Davis Key Points • The U.S. Air Force is seeking contractors to replace the DAR-400 encryption unit on its 15 operational E-3G AWACS aircraft. • General Dynamics Mission Systems told the U.S. Air Force the DAR-400 cannot be upgraded to meet changing NSA requirements. The U.S. Air Force is looking for a contractor to replace an aging encryption unit on its E-3G AWACS radar planes after the manufacturer warned it can no longer keep up with changing National Security Agency security requirements, according to a sources-sought notice posted Sept. 25 on the federal contracting website. The part, known as the DAR-400, is a data-at-rest unit that stores encrypted mission data on board the aircraft. The Air Force called it mission-critical and said it is in critical need of an obsolescence fix to avoid disrupting operations. Its maker, General Dynamics Mission Systems, told the service the DAR-400 cannot support or be upgraded to meet new NSA requirements. Because the unit holds encrypted data for several of the plane’s mission and computing systems, the notice said, a failure would directly affect both operations and data security. The Air Force already has a replacement. It is providing a government-owned solution based on the KG-204, which it said complies with current Department of War and NSA mandates. The contractor would install and integrate that equipment across the fleet. The notice did not give a cost estimate, schedule or number of units. The notice is market research, not a solicitation. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and special operations directorate is asking companies of all sizes, including small businesses, to describe their capabilities by Oct. 12. The responses will help decide whether the work is set aside for small businesses. The Air Force listed its operational E-3G fleet at 15 aircraft. The Boeing 707-based planes carry a large rotating radar dome on top of the fuselage and serve as airborne command posts, tracking aircraft and directing U.S. and allied forces. The fleet is based at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma. One E-3G was destroyed in a drone and missile attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on March 27, 2026, during the war with Iran. Air Force leaders have said for years that the E-3 is increasingly difficult to keep flying and that its Cold War-era radar is outdated. The radar dome takes 10 seconds to complete one rotation and refresh its picture of the sky. Its planned replacement, Boeing’s E-7 Wedgetail, remains in dispute between the Pentagon and Congress. The Department of War tried to cancel the E-7 in its fiscal 2026 budget, but lawmakers blocked the move. The fiscal 2026 defense policy law also barred the Air Force from retiring any of its E-3s if the fleet would fall below 16. In March 2026, the Air For The department then requested no money for the E-7 in its fiscal 2027 budget. Congressional committees have since written about $1.55 billion for the program into their bills, but the final amount has not been settled. With the E-7’s future unresolved, the Air Force plans to keep the E-3G flying, and the DAR-400 replacement is one of the upgrades needed to do that. What goes into a Boeing plane? Note: Important video in the original article. Take a look inside Boeing Tianjin Composites, where composite materials are turned into aircraft components, including radomes for the Boeing 787. According to the company, China's growing commercial aviation market offers opportunities for all players across the industry. #Boeing #Aviation #Manufacturing #China #Technology F-47 Production Line Is Near: Boeing Ramps Up 6th-Generation Fighter Push Boeing is expanding its St. Louis industrial base as the F-47 advances toward design completion, flight testing and future production. By Kevin DerbyOctober 2, 20267 Mins Read Note: See photos in the original article. Photo: Boeing ARLINGTON- Boeing is advancing the F-47 sixth-generation fighter program as the US Air Force moves closer to establishing a dedicated production line. The Air Force continues to target a 2028 first flight for the F-47, while Boeing expands its St. Louis manufacturing facilities and works toward finalizing the aircraft’s design. Brig. Gen. Timothy Helfrich said an F-47 production line is “not too far away.” F-47 Photo- US Air Force via AP F-47 Moves Closer to Dedicated Production Brig. Gen. Timothy Helfrich, the US Air Force’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Fighters and Advanced Aircraft, said the service is approaching the point where a full F-47 production line can be established. He described fighter manufacturing capacity as a strategic requirement and said the Air Force needs to maximize current facilities while creating additional lines for the F-47 and Collaborative Combat Aircraft. Helfrich said the United States currently has only three active fighter production lines: the F-35 line in Fort Worth, Texas; the F-15EX line in St. Louis, Missouri; and the F-16 line in Greenville, South Carolina. He said the Air Force must increase output from those existing lines while adding new production capacity. The planned F-47 line would therefore add to the existing fighter industrial base rather than replace one of the current lines. The comments highlight that production infrastructure is becoming part of the F-47 program before the aircraft reaches flight testing. Establishing a new line requires dedicated assembly space, support infrastructure, testing capability, equipment and an industrial workforce capable of sustaining production. Photo: Boeing Boeing Expands Its Manufacturing Base Boeing is undertaking a nearly $2 billion expansion of its St. Louis facilities as the F-47 program advances. The project adds more than one million square feet of production and support space and forms part of a broader investment in advanced combat-aircraft manufacturing. Boeing currently produces the F-15EX at the same location. The expansion includes new aircraft assembly and support infrastructure, including a large assembly building, a hangar and a radar cross-section test facility. Boeing has not stated that the entire construction program is dedicated exclusively to the F-47, so the facilities should be viewed as part of the company’s wider next-generation combat-aircraft manufacturing capacity. Boeing’s own description of its Missouri operations identifies the new $1.8 billion advanced facility as supporting future digital engineering and aviation work, including the F-47. The company has also described its broader investment in advanced combat-aircraft production facilities as a multiyear effort. Photo- US Air Force Design Work Continues Toward 2028 First Flight The Air Force and Boeing were reported in mid-September to be making progress toward finalizing the F-47’s design. Gen. Dale White, the Air Force’s direct reporting program manager for major acquisition programs, said on September 15 that the program remained on track for a first flight within the next two years and that officials did not see major obstacles to that target. The program’s current schedule calls for the first F-47 flight in 2028. Current reporting also places the goal for production aircraft to enter operational service in the early 2030s. That timeline would create a relatively rapid transition from development into flight testing and production. The speed of the schedule is linked to earlier technology development. The Air Force conducted risk-reduction work through experimental aircraft before Boeing received the current F-47 development contract. DARPA says Boeing and Lockheed Martin developed X-planes for NGAD risk reduction, with those aircraft flying hundreds of hours during earlier testing. This earlier work is important because the Air Force has sought to mature critical technologies before the main aircraft contract. The approach allows the F-47 development effort to begin with technologies that have already undergone testing rather than relying entirely on new systems developed after contract award. Military Watch Magazine also highlighted this technology-maturation approach in its reporting on the program. Photo : Ethan Wagner | Wikimedia Commons |https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F-15EX_Eagle_II.jpg F-47 Entered Formal Development in 2025 The US Air Force awarded Boeing the F-47 contract on March 21, 2025, beginning the formal Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase for the next-generation fighter. Boeing said the award covers the design, development and delivery of the next-generation fighter platform. The program had been discussed and developed for years before that formal award, including earlier NGAD engineering and technology-development activity. The distinction is important because earlier NGAD development milestones should not be confused with the 2025 F-47 EMD contract. The preceding development effort also helps explain why the Air Force continues to describe the 2028 flight target as achievable despite the speed of the program. The service has repeatedly pointed to the maturity of technologies developed during the risk-reduction phase as a factor supporting the current schedule. The Air Force currently plans to procure at least 185 F-47 fighters. The aircraft is intended to become the crewed fighter element of the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems, which also incorporates uncrewed capabilities such as Collaborative Combat Aircraft. The planned fleet size gives the production-line decision long-term significance. A dedicated manufacturing line would provide the industrial foundation for producing the aircraft at scale rather than relying only on limited-rate development and initial production facilities. The F-47 is also the fighter of its generation that the U.S. Air Force currently intends to procure as its future sixth-generation crewed fighter. That procurement approach differs from the service’s previous generation, which included separate F-22 and F-35 fighter programs. Image of U.S. President Donald Trump Boeing Makes Its Largest-Ever Defense Investment Boeing has described its F-47 effort as involving the most significant investment in the history of its defense business. When the company announced the F-47 contract, Boeing said it had made its most significant investment to support the program and its sixth-generation fighter capability. The investment extends beyond the aircraft design itself. Boeing’s St. Louis expansion is intended to strengthen advanced aircraft manufacturing, digital engineering and supporting production capabilities. The scale of the facilities program indicates that the company is preparing industrial capacity alongside the F-47’s development schedule. J-36 6th Gen Fighter F-47 Remains Behind Chinese Sixth-Generation Programs The F-47’s development is taking place as China advances its own next-generation fighter programs. The supplied reporting notes that the US aircraft remains several years behind rival Chinese sixth-generation fighter programs in terms of development and flight testing. Recent reporting has described Chinese next-generation aircraft commonly identified as the J-36 and J-50 as having been observed in flight testing since December 2024. This difference in development timing provides important context for the Air Force’s emphasis on speed. The US program is attempting to move from mature technology demonstrations and detailed design into flight testing while simultaneously preparing the industrial base needed for production. The Air Force’s approach therefore involves two parallel objectives: completing a technically complex sixth-generation fighter on an accelerated schedule and expanding the manufacturing infrastructure required to build it in significant numbers. Photo: Alexander H Groves | LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION Production Capacity Is Central to Program Helfrich’s comments show that the Air Force views fighter-production capacity as more than a manufacturing issue. The service must continue supporting existing F-35, F-15EX and F-16 production while creating capacity for the F-47 and Collaborative Combat Aircraft. Adding an F-47 production line would increase the number of active US fighter lines from the three identified by Helfrich to four. More importantly, it would give the Air Force a manufacturing base specifically aligned with its next-generation fighter requirement. Boeing’s growing St. Louis infrastructure provides a key industrial component of that effort, although the precise division of the expanded facilities among the F-47, other advanced combat aircraft and supporting activities remains undisclosed. Photo: Lockheed Martin What Comes Next? The immediate milestones are the continued finalization of the aircraft design, construction of initial flight-test aircraft, preparation of production infrastructure and the targeted 2028 first flight. Current reporting indicates that Boeing is already building the first aircraft while the St. Louis expansion progresses. The production-line announcement does not mean the F-47 has entered full-rate production. Instead, it indicates that the Air Force is preparing the manufacturing capacity needed for the next phase of the program. If the current schedule remains on track, the F-47 will move from technology maturation and detailed design toward flight testing and eventually production during the latter half of the decade. The program’s progress will depend on successful design completion, flight testing, manufacturing readiness and continued development of the supporting industrial base. Stay tuned with us. Further, follow us on social media for the latest updates. Join us on Telegram Group for the Latest Aviation Updates. Subsequently, follow us on Google News Texas A&M students build 50-pound drone that lifts 110 pounds Built for DARPA’s Lift Challenge, a Texas A&M drone prototype can support disaster relief, package delivery, and surveillance missions. By Kaif Shaikh AI and Robotics Sep 29, 2026 07:58 PM EST A battery accounted for more than half the drone's weight, forcing Texas A&M students to design around a power source that stays just as heavy throughout the flight. Texas A&M University A team of Texas A&M University aerospace engineering students has built a 50-pound drone capable of carrying 110 pounds over four nautical miles, demonstrating a lightweight design at the first Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Lift Challenge. Led by aerospace engineering professor Dr. Moble Benedict, the Advanced Vertical Flight Laboratory team was one of just six groups among 87 that completed the competition course on August 9 near the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. The challenge required teams to transport as much weight as possible over the four-nautical-mile course. The Texas A&M drone completed the flight in 12 minutes while carrying barbell weights more than twice its own weight. Carbon fiber frame weighs just six pounds The team’s main engineering achievement was reducing the drone’s structural weight while maintaining the strength needed to carry a heavy payload. The final design uses a carbon fiber frame with a central battery and eight arms supporting the motors and propellers. Rather than relying on conventional nuts and bolts, which can add significant weight, the students bonded the structure together. The resulting frame weighs just six pounds without the battery, despite supporting a drone capable of carrying 110 pounds. “We had to attach the weight in a clever way to allow the structure to be as light as it is,” Benedict said. “Allowing a six-pound drone to carry 110 pounds is the main innovation that we are proud of.” The team went through several design iterations before arriving at the final configuration, building five prototypes over just eight months. Benedict said the process would ideally take a couple of years, with much of the development time spent on design work and virtual simulations before the physical construction began. Battery power shaped the drone’s design The team selected a battery-powered propulsion system, but its weight presented a major engineering challenge. The battery accounted for more than half of the drone’s total weight, forcing the students to account for its mass throughout the flight. Unlike fuel-powered aircraft, which become lighter as they consume fuel, the drone’s battery weighs the same at the beginning and end of a flight. “A battery weighs the same at the beginning of the flight as it does at the end,” team member Cayden Brown said. “We had to account for the same weight across the journey. A charged battery weighs the exact same as a dead battery.” A gas-powered system could have reduced weight, but Brown said it would have introduced greater complexity for a multirotor aircraft. Potential uses include disaster relief and surveillance The first DARPA Lift Challenge attracted around 480 concept submissions, with 110 teams invited to compete. Of the 87 groups that reached the competition, only six completed the course. Texas A&M’s team hopes to continue refining its prototype, which had a materials cost of approximately $10,000. Benedict said the design could eventually support applications such as disaster relief, package delivery, and surveillance. The drone remains a prototype, and the competition demonstrated its payload-carrying capability rather than establishing its readiness for operational deployment. “We’re very proud of this product,” Benedict said. “It’s still a prototype at this point, but it has the potential to be used for many realistic missions, especially for disaster relief efforts and surveillance.” NASA Testing Aims at Supercooled Large Droplet Aviation Safety Ice collection seen on un-heated sections of the 1D2D-X ice drop detection probe in the test section of the IRT (Icing Research Tunnel). Drop Size Probe testing - SFD (Subsonic Flight Demonstrator) of SLD (Supercooled Large Drop) Instrumentation Test in IRT (Icing Research Tunnel) – Particle Size Distribution Entry, June 8-11, 2026 Large Drop Testing in IRT Credits: NASA/Quentin Schwinn Sarah Mann NASA Armstrong Public Affairs Specialist Oct 05, 2026 Note: See photos in the original article. NASA is leveraging its expertise and enhancing its test facilities to help address a rare but persistent aviation hazard: icing that occurs when aircraft encounter unusually large, very cold water droplets in clouds. The problem, known as “supercooled large droplet icing,” occurs when aircraft fly through clouds containing unusually large drops of water that are very cold but remain liquid. When a plane passes through those drops, they can rapidly freeze to surfaces that are not protected from ice buildup. With a series of tests in the Icing Research Tunnel at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, NASA researchers are helping U.S. industry better understand the phenomenon. SFD (Subsonic Flight Demonstrator) of SLD (Supercooled Large Drop) Instrumentation Test – Particle Size Measurement in the IRT (Icing Research Tunnel), June 8-11, 2026. Drop size shown on computer from Drop Sizing Probe seen in the IRT test section. NASA/Quentin Schwinn Supercooled water is common in clouds – droplets can go below 32 degrees Farenheit but not freeze unless they encounter dust or other tiny particles around which they can crystalize. Aircraft are designed to encounter typical icing conditions where droplets range from 2 to 100 microns in diameter (for comparison, a human hair is about 70 microns wide). But in rarer cases, clouds can contain supercooled large drops up to 2,000 microns in diameter (if you’ve ever been caught in freezing rain, you’ve encountered these droplets at ground level). These much larger droplets can hit or splash to the aft of an aircraft, including areas behind conventional ice protection systems. The aviation industry relies on engineering tools to help design their aircraft. Current tools work well for typical clouds, but engineers have questions about how well they account for the physics of supercooled large drops. To help answer those questions, NASA is working to enhance the equipment it uses to generate and measure experimental clouds for testing in the Icing Research Tunnel. Ice collection seen on un-heated sections of the ice drop detection probe in the test section of the IRT (Icing Research Tunnel). Drop Size Probe testing – SFD (Subsonic Flight Demonstrator) of SLD (Supercooled Large Drop) Instrumentation Test in IRT (Icing Research Tunnel) – Particle Size Distribution Entry, June 8-11, 2026 NASA/Quentin Schwinn NASA researchers have experimented with brand new probes that help calibrate the sizes of the drops in the clouds the tunnel produces. The probes can “see” drops larger than 45 microns and perform a real-time analysis of their sizes. NASA will compare these results, a laborious technique of post-processing droplet size image data from the tunnel. The results will be mated to results from a different probe that measures droplets smaller than 45 microns. With this, the complete droplet size spectrum is known. The test campaign marks an important milestone for the Subsonic Flight Demonstrator project, part of NASA’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate. Detailed analysis of the collected data continues, and NASA’s project team will share results with the broader aerospace community once complete. Addressing the shortage of aviation maintenance technicians March 24, 2026 | Article Summarize NEW Aircraft maintenance organizations can address the struggle for talent by boosting their own technicians’ productivity. Article (8 pages) Shortages of aviation maintenance technicians (AMTs) can drive up aviation costs, delay aircraft turnaround times, and hamper aircraft reliability. Analysis suggests that, at current rates of AMT retirement, recruitment and training will not be sufficient to bridge a shortfall that is projected to reach approximately 60,000 technicians (roughly 20 percent below needs) by 2029. To overcome this shortage, some aviation maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) organizations are enhancing their employee value propositions to attract more technicians, partnering with training institutions to expand the talent pipeline, and intensifying recruitment efforts. But an additional approach could help MRO organizations sidestep this competition for talent. Instead of merely seeking to attract external AMTs, some leading MRO organizations are also placing higher priority on improving the productivity of their existing AMT workforces. Byline About the authors Across the industry, the productivity rates—or “wrench times,” meaning the share of hours spent on hands-on technical work—of AMTs vary between 15 and 45 percent. Productivity rates can be influenced by work volume and type of work (for example, engine shops typically deliver higher productivity than would occur in a line maintenance environment) and by the quality and maturity of planning and preparatory processes (for example, parts and tooling availability, AMT qualifications for the job at hand, and alignment of shift starts with aircraft arrivals). Our analysis suggests that raising technician productivity to best-quartile levels across the industry could mitigate more than 80 percent of the projected 2029 AMT shortage. MRO organizations can achieve this productivity boost through a combination of three levers: • Getting back to basics by improving fundamental operations has the potential to increase wrench time by ten percentage points or more. • Implementing digital and AI solutions can contribute to a 15 to 35 percent increase in technician productivity. • Offering learning-based skill building can liberate technician capacity by accelerating the time to proficiency. Confronting a projected shortage of AMTs Over the past five years, the availability of qualified AMTs has been limited, due in large part to a wave of early retirements and job cuts at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, lower industry attraction rates, and increased attrition to higher-paying industries. To offset this shortage, MRO employers in the United States raised their pay rates, leading to an hourly wage increase of more than 20 percent since 2019. This AMT shortage is expected to persist, and potentially intensify, due to the continued strength of MRO demand. Compounding this effect is the challenge MRO employers face in ensuring that their AMTs have the required skills and certifications to service both new-generation aircraft (which typically have more complex maintenance needs) and an aging fleet of legacy and sunsetting aircraft. Analysis indicates that the global AMT shortfall could reach roughly 22,000 full-time employees by the end of 2026. Given projected MRO demand growth, this shortage is projected to nearly triple over the following three years (Exhibit 1). Exhibit 1 In addition to raising wages and bolstering their recruiting efforts, some leading MROs are placing increased focus on improving productivity to boost capacity. Productivity rates among frontline AMTs can vary significantly across different players and maintenance activities. In some instances, wrench time can fall below 20 percent—particularly in cases where daytime line maintenance crews are forced to act more like “fire brigades” handling spot issues that arise, or when base maintenance crews experience significant parts challenges. Boosting technician productivity: Three levers Our analysis indicates that if global MRO players were to raise their AMTs to top-quartile levels of productivity, more than 80 percent of the anticipated AMT shortage could be mitigated (Exhibit 2). If no action is taken, the shortage of technicians could reach 60,000 in 2029. If technicians in a variety of functions improve to top-quartile productivity levels, the projected shortage could fall to 11,000. Exhibit 2 MRO organizations can realize short- to mid-term impact by implementing a selected set of interventions in three categories. Get back to basics Most Popular Insights 1. What to read next: McKinsey’s 2026 annual book recommendations 2. Is that AI agent worth it? Agentic economics and the modern operating model 3. Building expertise in the age of AI: Who trains the next generation? 4. How AI is reshaping the future of the AEC industry 5. The state of AI in 2025: Agents, innovation, and transformation During the pandemic and the subsequent recovery, many MRO players sustained meaningful levels of attrition in several functional areas beyond AMTs. This led in some cases to degradation in critical processes, such as production planning, day-of-operations steering, and continuous improvement. Before moving on to more advanced (for instance, digital) measures, these MROs could achieve significant improvements by reinforcing operational fundamentals. In many airframe operations today, performance losses are driven not by a lack of technical capability, but by inadequate operational steering. Core management routines—such as check planning, day-of-operations control, and issue escalation—are often undefined, inconsistently applied, or lacking in real-time transparency. As a result, technicians often spend a significant share of their time waiting for information, materials, decisions, or handovers instead of performing value-adding maintenance work. For example, during an in-hangar A-check on a wide-body aircraft with a planned turnaround of roughly 20 hours, it is critical that all required materials, components, and tools are ordered in a timely manner and properly staged so technicians don’t have to search for them. If parts are delivered too late or not properly staged, technicians can find themselves wasting critical time that’s needed to complete the check on schedule. Standardize activities around critical moments. Best-practice MROs use a simple but rigorous operating model focused on actively managing the critical path of a maintenance check. At the core of this model is a standardized “critical moments” framework that prioritizes and concentrates management attention and support infrastructure at points where the execution risk is highest. Getting this right can recover up to ten percentage points of lost wrench time. A small set of recurring critical moments tends to regularly occur during checks, potentially causing disproportionate impacts on turnaround times and overruns: • preparation, when work is deliberately shifted upstream before aircraft induction (for example, cleaning immediately after landing, or prestaging tools and materials) • aircraft intake, when inspections are executed as early as possible to surface findings while schedule flexibility remains • critical findings, when technical and planning experts rapidly assess impact on scope, skills, and parts • shift handovers, which are tightly structured to avoid productivity dropping to near zero during crew changes For each critical moment, standard work can be defined—who does what, by when, and with which inputs—reducing variability and preventing avoidable delays. Enable proactive supervision and intervention. Standardization alone is insufficient without active supervision. Best-in-class MROs deploy leads, supervisors, and planners as a visible support layer that energetically intervenes in critical moments. Rather than passively monitoring progress, these roles are explicitly accountable for: • resolving constraints (such as skills, materials, and engineering support) in real time • making fast trade-off decisions when findings threaten the plan • ensuring rapid escalation when deviations occur This approach shifts supervisors from being administrative coordinators to becoming operational traffic controllers who direct and protect wrench time. Propel performance through clear, visible KPIs. Leaders can actively manage performance by linking a small set of operational KPIs to each critical moment—for example, inspection completion within the first X percent of check duration, handover-quality scores, or response times to findings. Progress can be tracked daily at check, area, and site levels, creating transparency and enabling rapid course correction. Stable, predictable execution tied to meeting KPIs enables MROs to shorten planned turnaround times, reduce overruns, and materially increase effective technician productivity. Our analysis suggests that checks that perform well on these key indicators are more likely to be completed on time than checks that do not. During a recent shopfloor transformation, a leading MRO sustained higher-level performance in part by emphasizing these indicators, which in turn required developing an extensive operating model playbook and instilling new ways of working across the entire workforce. A critical enabler of success is a structured capability-building program for operational leaders, from shop floor leads to area managers, to embed these routines consistently. MROs that adopt a disciplined, critical-moment-based operating model have demonstrated sustained improvements in wrench time of up to ten percentage points. Implement digital and AI solutions Deploying technology, including AI, can unleash 15 to 35 percent more capacity for maintenance technicians. Gen AI and digital tools can act as virtual maintenance and repair experts, handle administrative tasks, conduct automatic quality control, and make supply chains more efficient. With the support of these tools, AMTs have the information, processes, materials, and time to perform their most valuable tasks swiftly and accurately. Innovative MROs are turning these gen AI possibilities into reality beyond initial use cases. For instance, a global airline’s maintenance department recently developed proof of concept for a gen AI–powered tool to improve issue reporting for its minimum equipment list backlog. This tool uses limited employee input, such as fault names and ATA system codes, to suggest missing information—such as job duration, skill codes, and material requirements—thus enabling better maintenance planning and faster defect resolution. Using this tool has, in some cases, created time savings of 60 to 70 percent. Early results also show a positive impact on workforce morale, with many technicians excited about the proof of concept and its potential applications. Such implementations, along with more comprehensive gen AI integrations (for instance, in planning departments), could dramatically boost productivity—enabling more efficient processes, increased wrench time, and reduced turnaround time—and could lead to fewer aircraft on the ground. However, many MROs are still early in their digital journeys. While individual use cases can generate excitement and show value, realizing full potential requires a holistic, end-to-end road map to address needed investments, training and upskilling requirements, and process changes. To scale beyond pilots, MROs need to address some key prerequisites: structured and standardized job cards, secure access to high-quality data (such as records, manuals, findings, and parts), and tight integration with maintenance and engineering systems so that AI sits inside workflows and systems of record, not alongside them. Just as critical is change management, including updated standard operating procedures; role clarity across planning, engineering, and shops; and targeted upskilling intended to propel adoption and consistent ways of working. Given the safety- and compliance-critical context, deployments also require strong controls: human-in-the-loop approvals for consequential outputs, rigorous QA and traceability to source documentation, proactive engagement with regulators, and formal model risk governance (including validation, drift monitoring, audit trails, and access controls). Offer learning-based skill building The MRO industry still relies heavily on apprenticeship. Junior technicians learn by shadowing experienced AMTs and accumulating logged hours toward licensing and company approvals. While it can be effective, this model can also be highly variable because it depends on the scarce availability of senior mentors and is constrained by instructor and examiner capacity. It’s time to modernize maintenance training. MRO players embracing more structured development approaches could upskill their workforces, accelerating the path to proficiency at a pace not achievable using traditional apprenticeship models. In today’s tight labor market and regulatory environment, which limit throughput and lengthen the path to independent release authority, leading MROs are shifting toward structured capability acceleration anchored in three elements: a competency framework, clear progression milestones, and measurable time-based KPIs. Establish a competency framework. High-performing organizations define progression by capability instead of tenure. A structured competency matrix maps required skills across core domains—such as airframe, engine, avionics, composites, and structures—with progressive authorization levels (assisting, supervised, independent, and authorized to complete final inspection or Certificate of Release to Service sign off, as permitted by the approval basis). This creates transparency regarding who can perform which tasks, aligns certified capability with forecasted workload, and exposes bottlenecks (for example, having insufficient personnel with avionics sign-off authorization available on certain shifts). Upskilling becomes targeted instead of generic, with training and on-the-job learning directed at remedying specific gaps rather than moving through broad, nonprioritized curricula. Pair skill building with outcome KPIs. To improve capacity, skill development must be managed with operational rigor. Two KPIs in particular tend to be especially useful: • Time to proficiency is the time required to meet defined competency standards or sign off eligibility for a given task family or skill category. • Time to independent task execution is the time required to perform tasks autonomously at required safety, quality, and productivity levels. Traditional metrics (such as training hours or courses completed) measure inputs. These KPIs measure productive output. Reducing time to independent execution directly increases effective wrench time and lowers supervisory burden—a pattern already evident in some competency based, OEM led training programs that have reported substantial productivity gains. Systematic tracking across cohorts and sites can help reveal where training flow slows—and where interventions such as standardized curricula, simulation, coaching, structured on-the-job experiences, or digital aids can accelerate progress. Address pipeline constraints beyond the shop floor. Skill acceleration is also an ecosystem challenge. Throughput is often constrained by limited instructor availability, examiner bottlenecks, regulatory gates, and restricted access to training assets. Even well-designed programs stall when certification queues build. Forward-looking MROs manage the entire capability pipeline. They increase instructor leverage through standardized modules, use simulation and virtual or augmented reality to reduce dependence on physical assets, smooth examiner demand, plan for regulatory checks, and partner with training institutions and OEMs to align curricula with operational needs. The objective is not to replace apprenticeship but to industrialize it—making expertise reproducible, measurable, and less dependent on a shrinking cohort of senior technicians. Structured competence management is already established as a regulatory and business requirement in many MRO facilities. The shift that leading organizations are making now is to treat it as a core operations process instead of a support function. A 20 to 30 percent reduction in time to proficiency or time to independent execution can materially expand effective capacity and improve utilization of existing hangar, tooling, and line maintenance slots. In a highly constrained labor market, structured capability building is not a support activity—it is a direct productivity and resilience lever for MRO networks. The projected shortage of aviation maintenance technicians is unlikely to be solved by recruiting alone. While strengthening the talent pipeline remains essential, our findings suggest that the industry already holds a significant, underused source of capacity within its existing workforce. By reinforcing operational fundamentals, embedding digital and AI solutions directly into workflows, and industrializing skill development to accelerate time to proficiency, MRO organizations can materially increase effective wrench time. Raising productivity levels could offset much of the anticipated worker shortfall while improving turnaround times, reliability, and cost performance. Curt Lewis