Commercial Jet history

The first flight took place in 1994.

In 1995 Boeing joined Ukrainian, Russian, and Anglo-Norwegian partners to form Sea Launch, a commercial launch services company that sent satellites into geostationary orbit from a floating platform at an equatorial site in the Pacific Ocean.

In 1996 Boeing and Lockheed Martin received United States defense contracts to build competitive technology demonstrators for the Joint Strike Fighter, intended as an affordable, next-generation, multirole fighter for the armed services of the United States and Britain.

Commercial launches began in 1999.

In 2000 Boeing acquired the satellite business of Hughes Electronics.

In 2001 it announced plans to spin off its avionics business and rename itself Rockwell Automation.

The Renton plant builds the narrow-body Boeing 737 and formerly built the 757 aircraft (discontinued in 2004), while the wide-body Boeing 767 and 777 aircraft and a limited number of the largely discontinued 747s are assembled at the Everett plant.

The GE Honda HF120 engine was launched in 2006 and selected to power Honda Aircraft Company's advanced light HondaJet.

In 2007, GE acquired Smiths Aerospace, a U.K.-based supplier of integrated systems for aircraft manufacturers and engine components.

November 2008 marked the beginning of the flight test program for the GE-powered ARJ21 aircraft and thus the maiden flight of China’s first domestically developed regional jet aircraft.

The first flight of both the 787 and 747-8 aircraft occurred in 2010.

By 2011, the LEAP engine was successfully launched on the Airbus A320 neo, the Boeing 737 MAX, and the COMAC C919.

GE’s aggressive move into digital products was sparked largely by the 2012 acquisition of the small Austin Digital in Austin, Texas, which revealed to GE new ways to use flight data analysis to optimize customer flight operations.

In January 2013, following an airworthiness directive issued by the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that was subsequently taken up by regulators worldwide, all 787s in operation globally were temporarily grounded until a potential risk for battery fire was corrected.

Building on the strength of its design capabilities for high performance combat aircraft engines, GE successfully completed testing the world’s first adaptive, three-stream engine in 2014 through the Adaptive Versatile Engine Technology (ADVENT) program with the United States Air Force Research Lab.

In 2015, GE won the contract for the Boeing 777X’s electrical loan management system, backup generator, and the backup converter.

Also in 2016, GE Aviation consolidated its growing digital services under a single business called GE Aviation, Digital Solutions.

In 2019, GE announced that the GE9X became the most powerful commercial jet engine after reaching 134,300 pounds of thrust during ground testing at Peebles, Ohio.