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The USA aerospace parts industry is one of the biggest in the US economy, with civilian aircraft engine and parts manufacturing contributing $10.2 billion to GDP in 2009 while the other aircraft parts and equipment category added $36.9 billion, as well as producing 112,000 jobs and 454,000 jobs respectively. The aircraft parts industry is divided into the civilian sector and the military sector and produces products that include components such as body assemblies, propellers, brakes and brake expanders, wheels, elevators and landing gear.

United States aerospace industry is composed of some 1,000 companies that have combined annual revenue of $60 billion. Manufacturing is focused on a handful of major firms that include GE Aviation Systems, which is the world s largest producer of engines for commercial and military aircraft; and London-based Rolls Royce PLC, which is the second-largest maker of engines after GE. Honeywell Electronics, whose product line ranges from aerospace systems as well as consumer products and engineering services; and Alenia Aeronautica, an Italian firm that also works in the defense, security, energy and transport sectors are also among these firms.

The major industries and sectors that sourced parts from the aircraft parts industry include aircraft production and assembly, the Federal defense sector, the air transport industry and space vehicle and missile production.

One of the chief fabrication processes for producing aerospace parts is die casting. Die Casting involves injecting molten metal into steel dies/tools under high pressure to form them into the desired products. Diecasting has been around since the mid-1800s when it was first used to cast printer type. By the end of the century, die casting had already been used to make many types of parts including components for cash registers and phonographs. However, recent advances in the technology have made it possible to produce complicated castings that can take the place of multiple pieces in aircraft.

One of the main benefits in using diecasting to fabricate aerospace parts is that you can produce components that are lightweight without having to sacrifice tensile strength. Aluminum is one of the metals most suited for die casting, since it has high stability that allows it to be molded into complicated shapes as well as thin walls while still being light and having properties such as strength at high temperatures and high heat and electrical conductivity. In fact, aluminum diecast parts can even be as strong as their steel equivalents while being a fraction of their weight and costing much less to manufacture. And various aluminum alloys are available depending on the type of part required and the use to which it will be put.

Even though die casting has many other benefits including being able to fabricate composite shapes on a mass-production basis without sacrificing dimensional accuracy and stability as well as simplified production techniques that allow complicated parts to be cast using just one mold with no further assembly required. This makes the resulting aircraft part stronger as it is made of one piece of molded metal rather than several components that have been welded together. And one die can be used to fabricate thousands of identical aerospace parts before a new one has to be cast/produced.