Aerospace Industries Association

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For other uses, see AIA (disambiguation).
Aerospace Industries Association of America
Type Non-Profit trade Association
Industry Aerospace
Defense
Founded 1919
Headquarters Arlington, VA, Virginia, United States
Area served United States
Key people

Marion Blakey (President & CEO)

Robert J. Stevens(Chairman),
Employees 55 (2011)
Website AIA-Aerospace.org
First flight of the Wright Flyer I, December 17, 1903, Orville piloting, Wilbur running at wingtip. Photo by John T. Daniels of the Kill Devil Hills Life Saving Station, using Orville's tripod-mounted camera

The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), founded in 1919 only a few years after the birth of flight, is the premier trade association representing the nation's major aerospace and defense manufacturers. The Aerospace Industries Association represents the nation's leading manufacturers and suppliers of civil, military, and business aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, space systems, aircraft engines, missiles, material, and related components, equipment, services, and information technology.

Based in Arlington, VA, AIA is led by a Board of Governors that meets twice a year and consists of senior representatives (generally chief executive officers) of member companies, and an Executive Committee that meets more frequently. A hallmark of AIA is that it receives its policy guidance from the direct involvement of CEO-level officers of the country's major aerospace companies. The government frequently seeks advice from AIA on issues, and AIA provides a forum for government and industry representatives to exchange views and resolve problems on non-competitive matters related to the aerospace industry.

Today, over 150 major aerospace and defense companies are members of the association, embodying every high-technology manufacturing segment of the U.S. aerospace and defense industry from commercial aviation and avionics, to manned and unmanned defense systems, to space technologies and satellite communications.

In addition, the association has almost 200 associate member companies, all of which are leading aerospace and defense suppliers.

Marion C. Blakey is the association's chief executive officer and president. AIA member company representatives sit on various councils and committees in these areas and, supported by AIA staff, formulate industry positions on specific issues for approval by the Executive Committee and the Board of Governors.

The association concentrates on issues covering civil aviation, space and national security. In addition the association has offices for Communications, Legislative Affairs, and Membership Services, the Supplier Management Council, the Team America Rocketry Challenge and the Aerospace Research Center.

Contents

[edit] AIA History

[edit] Manufacturer's Aircraft Association

See also: The Wright brothers patent war

After entering World War I, the U.S. immediately realized the important role of aircraft in warfare. In 1917, the two major patent holders in aviation, the Wright Company and the Curtiss Company, had effectively blocked the building of new airplanes, which were desperately needed as the United States was entering World War I. The U.S. government, as a result of a recommendation of a committee formed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, pressured the industry to form a cross-licensing organization, the Manufacturer's Aircraft Association (MAA), formed in 1917. The association was initially designed as a patent pool which drew up a cross-licensing agreement to allow manufacturers to have unrestrained use of airplane patents in order to produce airplanes for the government's war effort[1][2][3]. Early members included such aviation pioneers as Orville Wright and Glen H. Curtiss, as well as representatives of major aircraft manufacturing units in the United States.

[edit] Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce

In 1919, the Manufacturer's Aircraft Association was dissolved, and the newly formed Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce (ACCA) stepped in to promote civil aviation, "to foster, advance, promulgate and promote: aeronautics, and "generally, to do every act and thing which may be necessary and proper for the advancement" of American aviation.

During World War II, the ACCA carried on limited functions for the industry while manufacturers focused on the war effort through East and West Coast Aircraft War Production Councils. These councils coordinated industry support with the War Planning Board and the military services. Following the war, ACCA was reorganized to concentrate on the industry's trade and commercial interests, and it became, for the first time, a trade association. Its name was appropriately changed to, "Aircraft Industries Association of America, Inc." (AIA).

[edit] Later history

In 1959, the Aircraft Industries Association officially changed its name to "Aerospace Industries Association, Inc." to recognize an evolving industry that was now embracing the new frontier of space.

In November 2007, Marion C. Blakey became the eighth full-time executive of AIA when she was named as President and Chief Executive Officer. Ms. Blakey succeeds John W. Douglass, who served the association from 1998-2007. Formerly the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, Ms. Blakey represents the interests of AIA and its member companies through speaking engagements worldwide, congressional testimony and regular interface with the media.

[edit] Organization

[edit] Regular Members

International Space Station
Cessna 560XL Citation Excel of the Swiss Air Force
C-130 Hercules; in production since the 1950s, now as the C-130J
Space Shuttle Atlantis during launch phase
Lockheed Martin/BAE/Northrop Grumman X-35 (F-35 Prototype)
Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit strategic bomber

[edit] Associate members

Submarine launch of a Lockheed Trident missile
V-22 in flight.
SpaceShipOne
The Predator UAV made by General Atomics affiliate General Atomics Aeronautical Systems

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Patent thickets and the Wright Brothers". ipbiz.blogspot.com. 2006-07-01. http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2006/07/patent-thickets-and-wright-brothers.html. Retrieved 2009-03-07. "In 1917, as a result of a recommendation of a committee formed by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (The Honorable Franklin D. Roosevelt), an aircraft patent pool was privately formed encompassing almost all aircraft manufacturers in the United States. The creation of the Manufacturer's Aircraft Association was crucial to the U.S. government because the two major patent holders, the Wright Company and the Curtiss Company, had effectively blocked the building of any new airplanes, which were desperately needed as the United States was entering World War I." 
  2. ^ "The Wright Brothers, Patents, and Technological Innovation". buckeyeinstitute.org. http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/article/197. Retrieved 2009-03-07. "This unusual arrangement could have been interpreted as a violation of antitrust law, but fortunately it was not. It served a clear economic purpose: preventing the holder of a single patent on a critical component from holding up creation of an entire aircraft. Practically, the pool had no effect on either market structure or technological advances. Speed, safety, and reliability of US made airplanes improved steadily over the years the pool existed (up to 1975). Over that time several firms held large shares of the commercial aircraft market: Douglas, Boeing, Lockheed, Convair, and Martin, but no one of them dominated it for very long." 
  3. ^ "THE CROSS-LICENSING AGREEMENT". history.nasa.gov. http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4103/ch2.htm. Retrieved 2009-03-07. 

[edit] External links

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