The aircraft may have grabbed the headlines, but the conversations told a different story
This year's Farnborough International Airshow (FIA26) felt different. Amid a change of prime minster and the arrival of a new defence secretary, there were of course aircraft launches, major announcements and plenty of discussion around investment in UK aerospace, to the tune of £10.8 billion according to some sources.
But walking around the exhibition halls and meeting customers, partners and suppliers, one thing became increasingly clear: the industry's focus has shifted. The conversations weren't really about aircraft orders.
They were about i) how to deliver capability faster, ii) how to manage increasingly complex programmes and iii) how to bring together the expertise needed to support the next generation of defence, autonomy, space and advanced air mobility. For a small UK structural engineering consultancy, that's an encouraging direction of travel.
As programmes become more ambitious and technically demanding, success depends on bringing together specialist expertise, fresh thinking and the ability to integrate quickly into larger delivery teams. Size alone isn't the differentiator anymore, technical capability, agility, and collaboration are, with organisations relying on trusted partners who can integrate quickly, solve complex technical challenges and provide confidence from concept through to certification.
For us, that reinforces the direction Cascade has been taking for many years.
There was less emphasis on established commercial platforms and more on defence as you might expect in the current environment. There was also a noticeable increase in autonomous systems, drones and eVTOL technologies, reflecting the importance of cross-sector experience to help this sector grow faster. Programmes such as GCAP demonstrated just how collaborative international aerospace development has become and the long-term nature of these engineering ecosystems which bring together OEMs, suppliers and specialist SMEs from around the world. It was good to see the Edgewing Tempest displayed as part of the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), a programme Cascade is watching with interest.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from Farnborough wasn't any individual announcement.
It was the confidence that specialist engineering businesses have an increasingly important role to play in delivering the UK's aerospace ambitions. Innovation may capture the headlines, but successful programmes are built through collaboration, engineering judgement and trusted partnerships.
Our customers increasingly ask us to support more than a single engineering discipline. They value engineers who can work across structural design, analysis, manufacturing support and certification, while bringing ideas and experience from different sectors and technologies. The ability to transfer knowledge between programmes has never been more valuable.