“It’s an impossibly high base year, with production having more than doubled in half a decade. The industry is running the risk of creating a bubble, and a balance needs to be struck,” said Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis at Teal Group Corp., Fairfax, Va. “The industry could be building for a colossal burp after watching costs and rates rise as new planes are produced.”  There also is increased competition from composites, particularly with Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner.  Aboulafia said the battle  of raw material suppliers is a back-and-forth process, with aggressive marketing from competing sectors.  “The Rolls Royce receivership in the 1970s was due to its use of composites in its engine. It became the watchword for overreach,” he said.  Composites have been used on business jets, but all except one failed, Aboulafia noted. The jury is still out on the latest release, which will be Montreal-based Bombardier Inc.’s  Learjet 85.  “Companies are naturally drawn to the innovation story, but it is easy to oversell technology. This is the oversold nature of the composite revolution,” Aboulafia said.

Without a defined national space policy, Aerojet Rocketdyne will struggle, said Marco A. Caceres, space analyst for the aerospace research firm Teal Group Corp. of Fairfax, Va. “In any merger, there are going to be layoffs,” he said. “The bigger question is what kind of demand is there for Rocketdyne’s products and what comes next for the company.”

Richard Aboulafia, aviation consultant with Fairfax, Va.-based Teal Group, said that partnerships between Western and Chinese aviation companies have tended to unravel over time because of intellectual-property issues.

But divisions within the Republican Party threaten the plan, said Richard Aboulafia, vice president for analysis at the Teal Group, an aerospace analysis group in northern Virginia. In past years, Republicans would push for defense spending and Democrats would resist, he said. Now much resistance is coming from the cost-cutting wing of the Republican Party, along with Republicans who oppose military interventions abroad.

Aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia said airports like Santa Monica  are a draw for business jets for the same reason they’re an annoyance to neighbors. “They’re centrally located. That’s valuable land, and it tends to be in the middle of expensive housing, too. Inevitably you’re going to see more conflict like these arise,” Aboulafia told KPCC.