Aerospace companies in Arizona: engines in Phoenix, missiles in Tucson, and four sites that hold most of the jobs

This report is for people researching Arizona's aerospace companies: engineers and job seekers, buyers looking for suppliers, and B2B sellers covering Phoenix and Tucson.

Arizona aerospace in Census data

US Census Bureau County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023, NAICS 3364 (Aerospace Product and Parts Manufacturing), State of Arizona:

These are single locations with paid employees; owner-operators with no staff aren't included. Each site is classed by its main activity, so avionics makers, repair shops and engineering firms aren't in the 69.

Four sites, three quarters of the jobs

In broad bands, 27 establishments have 1 to 19 employees, 22 have 20 to 99 and 20 have 100 or more. The CBP state file also publishes employment by size class: the four establishments with 1,000 or more employees employ 15,981 people, 74% of the total. The 15 sites with 100 to 499 employees add another 3,642.

Phoenix and Tucson

The Census Bureau published Tucson's employee total but flags it as high-noise, meaning its confidentiality noise moved it by 5% or more. By subtraction from the state total, the 15 establishments outside metro Phoenix employ about 9,585 people, an average of more than 600 each, which points to a few very large Tucson plants.

What each cluster makes, from the six-digit codes:

The remaining three Arizona establishments aren't published by code. Phoenix is an engine town: 95% of the state's engine and engine parts jobs are in the metro. It also has 15 navigation and guidance instrument makers (NAICS 334511) employing 3,100 people.

Who's there

Two listed aerospace companies have their headquarters in Arizona, and a third small one is in Tucson:

Honeywell Aerospace became an independent company on 29 June 2026, when Honeywell distributed its shares, and lists on Nasdaq; it hasn't filed a 10-K yet, so its 10-Q is the source for its address and quarterly sales. StandardAero is an engine maintenance and overhaul company. Applied Energetics makes lasers and optical systems.

The large defense primes report Arizona sites in their 2025 10-K filings: Boeing lists Mesa for Defense, Space & Security, and Northrop Grumman lists Sierra Vista (Aeronautics Systems), Mesa (Defense Systems) and Chandler and Gilbert (Space Systems). The Chamber of Southern Arizona lists major aerospace employers in the Tucson area including Raytheon, Bombardier Aerospace, Honeywell Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, Universal Avionics and World View.

Federal contracts performed in Arizona

USAspending shows $11.78 billion of federal contract obligations in fiscal 2025 coded to aerospace manufacturing (NAICS 3364) with an Arizona place of performance, second among states. Guided missile and space vehicle manufacturing was $10.27 billion of it.

Large programs put their obligations where the contract places the work, so one missile program can account for most of a state's total. Subcontracts aren't shown.

Prospecting Arizona aerospace companies

Missile work means defense rules: manufacturers of defense articles must register under ITAR (22 CFR 122.1), and CMMC Phase 2, when DoD intends to require third-party Level 2 certification on applicable contracts, starts on 10 November 2026.

Illustrative example. The shop, its prices and its customer count are invented; the establishment counts are from Census data.

Saguaro Coatings (saguarocoatings.example), a Mesa special-process shop, applies thermal spray coatings to engine components. Its first list is the 19 engine and engine parts establishments in metro Phoenix plus the overhaul shops that serve them. If it wins five as recurring customers at $120,000 a year each, that's $600,000. It sells through quality managers, because a coating supplier has to be approved on each customer's list before the first job. Bebop can find matching shops from a description like "engine component repair and manufacturing shops in Maricopa County with 20 to 250 employees".

State and regional sources

Next step: see how aerospace fits the state's factory base in the report on manufacturing companies in Arizona.