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NOTES 28 States manufacturers have been able to make decisions about product selection, prices, costs, and production facilities with relatively limited government involvement, in contrast to their counterparts in Europe where governments have often been involved, e.g., the VC10 and the A300. Business aviation directly benefited from the large U.S. technology base developed for commercial jet transports, described above. In the early 1960s business aviation was a small U.S. industry. Some large corporations had flight departments and recognized the benefits of rapid air transportation, but the fleet was composed of reconstructed military aircraft and a few cabinclass, twin- engined, piston-powered aircraft. Turboprops and jets were just being introduced. In the ensuing 20 years progress has been enormous, due to rapid technological advances in U.S. aircraft design and manufacture, U.S. government support for small airports and navigation infrastructure, and the willingness of U.S. general aviation manufacturers to accept the risk in applying new technology in new products. As the market developedâhelped by the expansion of industry and growth of small population centersâgeneral aviation manufacturers frequently offered aircraft with much improved performance and service capability through advances such as high-bypass engines, increasingly useful avionics, long-range navigation systems, and structural and safety advances. Most other regions of the world had neither the domestic market, technological base, nor the government support that the United States enjoyed, and thus little competitive foreign industry developed in general aviation until the last half of the 1970s. NOTES 1. National Benefits of Aerospace Exports, The Aerospace Research Center, Aerospace Industries Association of America, Inc., Washington, D.C., June 1983. 2. F.J.L. Diepen, "Aviation and Technology in the European Economy," AICMA-Symposium, London, September 13â14, 1967. 3. Aeronautical Research and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Volume 1: Summary Report, November 1982.