Aerospace Sourcing
Jacksonville, FL

Aerospace CNC Machining for Jacksonville MRO and Navy Programs

Jacksonville's aerospace machining demand is mostly sustainment: repair parts, replacement details, tooling and ground equipment for Navy aircraft and engines overhauled at Fleet Readiness Center Southeast, Boeing's Cecil Airport hangars and Northrop Grumman's E-2D plant in St. Augustine. The hard part is usually the technical data and source approval, not the machining.

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Who buys machined parts in Northeast Florida

Northeast Florida buys parts to keep military aircraft flying, with one new production line in St. Augustine. That makes it different from the Space Coast to the south, where launch hardware and new design dominate.

BuyerWhat the public record saysMachined work that comes up
Fleet Readiness Center Southeast (FRCSE), NAS JacksonvilleThe Navy describes FRCSE as the largest maintenance, repair, overhaul and technical services provider in Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia, with about 5,000 civilian, military and contract workers and annual revenue above $1 billion. It is the Navy's sole source of repair for the F414 engine module, which powers the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler.Repair details, bushings and fittings, engine and component tooling, test fixtures, ground support equipment parts
NAS Jacksonville squadronsNavy Region Southeast lists seven active duty P-8A Poseidon patrol squadrons, three Reserve squadrons, five MH-60R helicopter squadrons and an MQ-4C Triton squadron, plus the P-8A fleet replacement squadron, VP-30.Mostly organizational maintenance; parts demand flows through depot and supply channels
Boeing, Cecil AirportAt Cecil since 1999, with more than 1,000 aircraft modified or upgraded. In February 2024 Boeing opened a 385,000 square foot MRO hangar with eight bays, able to take up to eight P-8s, plus a Component Operations facility. Work covers P-8, KC-46 and F/A-18 Super Hornets, including the Blue Angels' jets.Structural repair parts, modification kit details, avionics mounting hardware, maintenance tooling
Northrop Grumman, St. AugustineThe E-2D Advanced Hawkeye plant at Northeast Florida Regional Airport. St. Johns County reports an average of three E-2Ds a year and at least 900 local jobs. Past product lines listed for the site include E-2C and F-5 modifications, T-38 wings, EA-18G wing tip pods and B-2 aft deck work.Production details, assembly tooling, modification parts

For a buyer, the pattern is clear: high mix, low quantity, often an older drawing, and a customer who cares a great deal about where the part came from.

What sustainment work asks of a machine shop

MRO and depot parts are judged on fit to an existing aircraft and on the paper trail, more than on cycle time. A replacement bushing that is dimensionally perfect still gets rejected if it was made to the wrong revision or from untraceable bar.

  • Make to the right data. Military replacement parts are normally built to OEM or government technical data at a specific revision. If you do not hold the data rights or the current drawing, say so up front.
  • Source approval. Some flight critical and critical safety items can only be bought from approved sources. Check before you send the RFQ, not after a part is made.
  • Repairs versus new parts. Oversize bushings, repair sleeves and blend fixtures often follow a repair specification rather than the original part drawing. Quote them against the repair document.
  • Tooling and GSE. Depots and contractor hangars consume holding fixtures, drill plates, engine stands and handling hardware. These usually carry fewer flight rules but still need traceable material and a clear acceptance plan. See tooling and fixtures.

The aviation MRO parts page covers the wider sustainment buy, including hardware and kits, and the aviation and MRO industry guide explains how repair stations source parts.

Have a part like this?Send it in under a minute. A person replies within 1 business day.

When the part is out of production

Aging fleets mean many Jacksonville requests are for parts the original maker no longer builds. There are three honest routes, in order of preference.

  1. Find genuine stock. Search authorized channels and traceable surplus first, under counterfeit avoidance controls such as AS5553 and AS6081 and the DFARS 252.246-7007 and 252.246-7008 clauses on DoD work. See counterfeit parts avoidance and NSN parts sourcing.
  2. Make it to existing data. If the drawing exists and you have the right to use it, a qualified shop can build the part again, often with a first article to AS9102.
  3. Reverse engineer it. If no usable data exists, a part can be measured and redrawn, but the result needs engineering authority approval before it goes on an aircraft. See reverse engineering.

The obsolete aerospace parts page goes through each route, and obsolete parts cost explains why these jobs price the way they do.

Cecil Airport and Cecil Spaceport

Cecil is an aircraft maintenance hub first and a spaceport only for horizontal launch. The former Naval Air Station Cecil Field is operated by the Jacksonville Aviation Authority, whose primary runway is 12,503 feet long.

The FAA granted the authority a launch site operator license in January 2010 to conduct horizontal space launches from Cecil Spaceport, meaning a carrier aircraft takes off from the runway and releases a vehicle at altitude. There is no vertical launch pad, so the steady machining demand at Cecil comes from the Boeing hangars and other aviation tenants rather than launch campaigns. Space launch buyers will find the pad hardware market on the Cape Canaveral page.

JAXPORT, military cargo and inbound material

JAXPORT matters to aerospace buyers mainly for heavy and military cargo and for imported material, not for finished flight parts.

  • JAXPORT states it is one of 18 U.S. Strategic Seaports on call to move military cargo and the only one in Florida. The Army's 841st Transportation Battalion uses the Blount Island Marine Terminal, which has about a mile of berthing, at least 75 acres of secure cargo area and on-dock rail served by CSX.
  • The port lists heavy lift and high and heavy roll-on roll-off among its cargo types, which covers large ground equipment and outsized crates.

Imported plate, bar and forgings still have to meet your material spec, and DoD work may restrict where specialty metals were melted. See DFARS specialty metals and material certs and traceability.

Salt air, humidity and storm season

Jacksonville parts live near salt water, and Navy aircraft fly over it, so corrosion protection belongs on the PO.

  • Specify the finish, such as anodize, chemical film, passivation or plating, and any primer, on every line. See surface finishing.
  • Watch dissimilar metal contact, especially steel bushings and fasteners in aluminum structure.
  • Ask for vapor barrier packaging and desiccant for spares that will sit in a supply system before installation.
  • The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30. Ask how a supplier protects work in process if a storm closes the area, and keep schedule margin on aircraft on ground parts due in late summer.

Statewide context is on the Florida aerospace parts page, and Southeast Georgia buyers may also want the Georgia page. The service overview is aerospace CNC machining.

Send a Jacksonville machining request

Aerospace Sourcing serves buyers anywhere in the United States, including Northeast Florida programs. We match repair parts, replacement details, tooling and GSE to qualified suppliers, flow down your data, source approval, quality and finish requirements, check the paperwork and deliver with a certificate of conformance, plus other certs when your request requires them. One quote, one lead time, one point of contact. A person replies within one business day, and aircraft on ground requests are prioritized as rush.

If you need a part for a Navy aircraft, engine or depot line, start a CNC request and tell us what technical data you hold. Controlled drawings move only by secure transfer; see controlled programs and confidentiality.

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Part, quantity and date are enough to start. Drawings and the mutual NDA follow by reply, and controlled programs never send technical data through this site.

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Need to attach drawings or sign the NDA first? Use the full request form.

Questions

Can you source replacement parts for FRCSE or Boeing Cecil work?

We source parts for buyers at depots, contractor hangars and their suppliers, matching each job to qualified shops and flowing down the data revision, source approval, first article, material and finish requirements. We do not claim a relationship with either organization. Tell us the platform, the drawing or repair document and any approved source rules, and we build the request around them.

What if I do not have a drawing for an obsolete aircraft part?

First check for genuine stock through authorized and traceable channels under counterfeit avoidance controls. If none exists, a part can be reverse engineered by measuring a sample and producing new data, but it must be approved by the responsible engineering authority before it is installed. We can coordinate the measurement, the drawing and the build, while the approval stays with your engineering authority.

Is Cecil Spaceport a rocket launch site?

Not in the vertical launch sense. The FAA granted the Jacksonville Aviation Authority a launch site operator license in January 2010 for horizontal launches, where a carrier aircraft takes off from Cecil's 12,503 foot runway and releases a vehicle at altitude. Day to day, Cecil's aerospace activity is aircraft maintenance and modification, led by Boeing's hangars.

How do I keep spares from corroding in Jacksonville's salt air?

Put protection on the PO. Specify the finish and primer for each part, isolate dissimilar metals such as steel bushings in aluminum, and require vapor barrier bags, desiccant and humidity indicators for parts that will be stored. Inspect on receipt and again before installation if spares sit in a supply system through the summer months.

Can tooling and ground equipment go on the same order as flight parts?

Yes. Depots and hangars often need a fixture or stand alongside the repair parts it supports. We source each item from the shop that suits it, apply the right requirements to each line, so flight parts get the full traceability and tooling gets its own acceptance plan, and return one quote, one lead time and one purchase order.

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