What factors contribute to the fact that only a handful of countries manufacture aircraft jet engines? [closed]

Question

The USA (GE, Pratt & Whitney), Russia (NPO Saturn, Klimov), France (Snecma) and the UK (Rolls Royce) are the only countries that have aircraft jet engine manufacturers. What factors might contribute to the reasons that there are no German, Canadian, Israeli, Spanish or Italian companies doing this?

I heard the allied countries of WW2 captured German engineers and developed their industries.

Is there any documentation in the final treaties to indicate that this might be connected to WW2 somehow?

Answer 1

The premise of your question is false. Here's a brief (and incomplete) list of current jet engine manufacturers:

• MTU Aero Engines (Germany)

  Jet engines are their main product, usually in conjuction with other manufacturers and/or manufacturing consortiums. They hold 33% of the development share and 30% of the production share of EUROJET Turbo GmbH, 40% of Turbo Union and 25.25% of International Aero Engines AG.

• Avio Group (Italy)

  They manufacture a series of civil and military engines, and hold 21% of the development share and 19.5% of the production share of EUROJET Turbo GmbH. They also hold 20% of Turbo Union

• Industria de Turbo Propulsores (Spain)

  Sener Aeroespacial (Spain) owns the majority (53.125%) of ITP, the rest (46.875%) is owned by Rolls-Royce (UK). ITP holds 13% of the development share and 16% of the production share of EUROJET Turbo GmbH.

• Kawasaki Aerospace Company (Japan)

  A couple of examples of their recent work are the XP-1, the C-1 and the C-2 military aircrafts. They are part of the Japanese Aero Engine Corporation consortium through their parent company, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and thus also part of International Aero Engines.

• IHI Corporation (Japan)

  They've designed and developed a variety of jet engines, a recent example of an engine solely developed by IHI is the F7 turbofan engine. They are also part of the Japanese Aero Engine Corporation consortium (and thus part of International Aero Engines).

• Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (Japan)

  They seem to be doing everything related to aerospace. Couldn't find specific mentions of recent jet engines they've build, but since they build Japan's main rockets (the H-IIA and H-IIB), I guess they deserve a honourable mention. They are also part of the Japanese Aero Engine Corporation consortium (and thus part of International Aero Engines).

• Ivchenko-Progress ZMKB (Ukraine)

  They manufacture a variety of turbofan, turboshaft, turboprop, and propfan engines.

• TAI (Turkey)

  They build GE F110 engines under license from General Electric, and they've also build at least one jet engine powered UAVs, the ŞİMŞEK. A (perhaps) weak example.

• Hellenic Aerospace Industry (Greece)

  The E1-79 ΠΗΓΑΣΟΣ (Pegasus) UAV is jet powered and was solely designed and developed by HAI. The project is now part of the Dassault nEUROn. Another (perhaps) weak example, but couldn't resist my Greek pride ;P

I have no idea why jet engine manufacturing (or lack of) would be connected to WW2, at least in the way you seem to imply. In any case, several companies that are based in the losing side of WW2 are key players in aerospace and if they build rockets, satellites and space station components, who cares if they are building jet engines or not.

Answer 2

It takes a huge investment to design and build a jet engine plant - at least for cutting edge large passenger jet engines. Even if you did manage this how would you get any customers?

The buyers for your jet engines, the airlines, want to save money but most of all want reliablilty. If you manage to buy an engine for a 747 for $1M less than Rolls-Royce/GE and one fails, potentially causing an accident - your airline is probably out of business. It's the same reason there isn't a cut throat market for pacemearkers or ejection seats.

Since it's so difficult to enter the market you are left with the company that invented the jet engine and an american competitor who was given the designs as part of WWII cooperation.

All the other makers are either subsidised for military/political independance for their home market or make a small range of relatively simple engines.