3RD annual GULF COAST AEROSPACE CORRIDOR Louisiana Mississippi Alabama Florida 2013-2014 June 2013 Gulf Coast Aerospace Corridor 2013-2014 – 1 Researched, written and prepared by the Gulf Coast Reporters’ League, an independent team of current and former journalists. Support for this project was provided by our underwriters. Findings detailed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect views of the organizations or agencies that appear in this publication or provide support. This book is available as a free PDF download. Printed versions and an eBook edition are available from Lulu.com, a print-on-demand service based in Raleigh, N.C. All rights reserved. Cover photos, clockwise from upper left: U.S. Navy Triton unmanned surveillance aircraft flying over the clouds (Northrop Grumman illustration); U.S. Air Force F-35 Joint Strike Fighters flying in formation (U.S. Air Force photo); portion of the popular Airbus A320 (Airbus photo); NASA’s Space Launch System taking off from the launch pad (NASA illustration). Version 3, 07/10/2013 Copyright © 2013-2014 by Tortorano Commissioned Publications/Gulf Coast Reporters’ League Gulf Coast Aerospace Corridor 2013-2014 – 2 Acknowledgements The Gulf Coast Reporters’ League and Okaloosa STEMM Center of Valparaiso, Fla., would like to thank Quint & Rishy Studer of Pensacola, Fla., for providing printed copies of this book to teachers with aviation-related courses in Okaloosa County, Fla. Support for the research, writing and compilation of this aerospace report was provided by the following organizations (alphabetical order): Aerospace Alliance Airbus Baldwin County Economic Development Alliance Enterprise Florida Florida’s Great Northwest Greater Pensacola Chamber Gulf Power Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport Mississippi Enterprise for Technology Mobile Airport Authority Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce Pensacola International Airport PowerSouth Santa Rosa Economic Development Office Trent Lott International Airport Gulf Coast Aerospace Corridor 2013-2014 – 3 About us The Gulf Coast Reporters’ League was established in 2011 by four current and former journalists to compile a reference book on the considerable aerospace activities in the Gulf Coast Interstate 10 region. First published in June 2011, the 2013 edition updates and adds to material that appeared in last year’s study. The league tracks the region’s aerospace activities throughout the year via the Gulf Coast Aerospace Corridor news digest (www.gcacnews.blogspot.com). League members David Tortorano, owner of Tortorano Commissioned Publications of Gulf Breeze, Fla., has 35 plus years of newspaper experience. In the Gulf Coast region he’s worked for UPI, the Pensacola News Journal, Northwest Florida Daily News, Mobile Press-Register and Sun Herald, and was part of the Sun Herald team that won a Pulitzer in 2006. Individual awards include a 1992 first-place for in- depth reporting from the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. Duwayne Escobedo, a freelance journalist, worked 20 years as an editor, investigative reporter and columnist. His experience includes covering Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and a range of news, business and feature stories in Northwest Florida over 14 years. His freelance work has appeared in the New York Times, Associated Press, Bloomberg and Time magazine. He won the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors award for Investigative Reporting in 1997. Tom McLaughlin covers courts and politics and is an investigative reporter for the Northwest Florida Daily News. He’s an award winning reporter with 27 years of newspaper experience in the Southeast. He won the national Best of Freedom Award and Florida's Gold Medal for Public Service award, along with three investigative reporting awards and awards for court reporting, beat reporting, explanatory writing, deadline reporting and column writing. George Talbot, the political editor of the Press-Register newspaper in Mobile, Ala., is an awardwinning reporter and columnist with more than 17 years experience on daily newspapers. His coverage of the Air Force tanker competition received national recognition and multiple first-place awards from the Alabama Press Association and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, among others. Gulf Coast Aerospace Corridor 2013-2014 – 4 Contents Executive summary 6 Diversity and room to grow Preface: Region overview 12 Boomtowns, coolness and geeks Chapter I: The showcase Spotlight shines on region 18 With an Airbus assembly line in Mobile, the region is on its way to becoming a showcase on the world aerospace stage Chapter II: Foreign investments New foreign investment wave near? 28 The U.S. still leads in foreign investments, and Airbus and its suppliers may reverse a trend where the U.S. lead is in decline Chapter III: Space activities The best of two worlds 38 The Gulf Coast has its foot in both commercial and government space activities, and two key facilities have lots of room to grow Chapter IV: RDT&E/applied technology R&D: Pathway to prosperity Aerial weapons, advanced materials, remote sensing and propulsion systems are just some of the fields where the region is an innovator 48 Chapter V: Unmanned systems/robotics Dronification of the world The military says UAs are indispensable, and now robot aircraft look like they’ll become common over civilian skies 58 Chapter VI: Military aviation Coping with tough times The region has felt the sting of cuts, but steps are being taken to protect what’s here and try to lure in some more 68 Chapter VII: Education/workforce Preparing the workforce From giving students a grounding in STEM to providing vocational 80 skills, the Gulf Coast regionGulf is Coaststepping Aerospace up to the Corridor plate…. 2013-2014 – 5 Executive summary Alabama Florida Mississippi Louisiana GCAC illustration, Google Earth map Diversity and room to grow t was in the summer of 2012 that Airbus U.S. aerospace industry announced it would build a $600 million A320 final assembly line in Mobile, Ala. Sales (est. 2013) $223.65 billion It will mean thousands of jobs and gives Work force (2012) 629,400 Ithe European plane maker visibility in the Source: Aerospace Industries Association United States, still the world’s most vibrant aerospace market. That will help Airbus com- But the Gulf Coast region is already highly pete for a larger share of the U.S. commercial active in aerospace, and it’s a member of two market, and for defense contracts as well. other unique aerospace clubs. It’s one of the For the Gulf Coast region the significance of few places in the country with a NASA center, the Airbus decision is still being assessed. Some as well as the only place where pilots learn to point to what happened when Mercedes-Benz fly fifth-generation F-35 and F-22 jet fighters. set up a plant in Vance, Ala. It was a watershed Unique capabilities like those are important if event for Alabama and the rest of the South’s the region wants to expand its aerospace foot- thriving automotive industry. The arrival of print and come out ahead of other areas trying Airbus has all the promise of being just as big, to do the same. and perhaps bigger. Having Airbus build A320s Aerospace is a real economic jewel. It’s a re- in Mobile puts the region in a select club of search intensive $223 billion industry that uses locations where large passenger jetliners are a range of highly paid talent, from those who built - significant in itself. design aircraft and those who assemble them to Gulf Coast Aerospace Corridor 2013-2014 – 6 Executive summary those who fly or maintain them. The two sec- tors are military and civilian aviation, and a Aerospace activities at a glance healthy aerospace footprint should include • Rocket and jet engine testing both. Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Missis- • sippi leaders are pursuing more aerospace ac- Rocket engine, satellite production • tivities, notably foreign investments. And that’s Piston engine assembly • important at a time when Pentagon belt- Unmanned aerial system plant • tightening brings uncertainty to the military, Site of future jetliner assembly plant • historically a pillar of the region’s economy. Areas approved for unmanned flights • With many areas of the country competing Military pilot training • for aerospace jobs, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana National Guard aerial combat training • and Mississippi joined together in 2009 to form Aerial weapons RDT&E the Aerospace Alliance. That made sense be- • Land and water ranges cause those states are packed with aerospace • National Guard helicopter repair depot clusters, including Huntsville and Decatur, Ala., • Multiple MRO activities part of a large science and technology region • Applied geospatial technologies called the Tennessee Valley Corridor; east cen- • Military electronics/cyber training tral Mississippi’s Golden Triangle, which in- • Human-machine cognition research cludes Columbus, Starkville and West Point; • Advanced manufacturing research Florida’s Space Coast; and the I-10 region along • 43-acre manufacturing plant the Gulf Coast, just to name a few. • Multiple aerospace parks The focus of this book is the I-10 corridor, the only cluster that includes a piece of all four performance materials, advanced manufac- states. It’s an urbanized area with seven con- turing and RDT&E are the region’s strong- tiguous metropolitan areas, including the largest est aerospace activities with the most po- city in Louisiana, second largest in Mississippi tential for growth. and third largest in Alabama. It’s a microcosm • Aerospace is a target industry for Alabama, of the aerospace activities found in all four Mississippi and Florida, and Louisiana has states, including space, military aviation, aircraft targeted advanced manufacturing. Local assembly, weapons development and more. economic development groups have also The idea behind this book wasn’t to list the targeted aerospace, and state and local lead aerospace activities in the 19-county/parish ers have joined in a mix of regional alliances corridor, but to put it in context.