BAE Systems — the engine controls of the jet age

1980s – TODAY

The quiet giant by the airport: BAE Systems' own account puts its Fort Wayne presence back to the 1980s. For some fifteen years the works occupied a 1942 building on Taylor Street — built, the developer's account records, where parts for B-17s were originally made, on the same street where GE had raised its wartime supercharger plant — and in September 2015 it moved to a purpose-built plant at 4250 Airport Expressway: 334,000 square feet, a $46 million building on a ten-year lease, with about 1,100 employees at the move, the developer and the Journal Gazette reported; the city's 2013 abatement resolution had recorded 1,000 full-time jobs retained at a $55 million payroll. A second, 50,000-square-foot engineering hub has since joined the 335,000-square-foot south plant. A workforce reduction of less than ten percent followed in 2016, the Journal Gazette reported; the site stands today as one of the city's largest technology employers.

What is made here: The bread and butter, in the manufacturing director's own phrase, is the FADEC — the full authority digital engine control, the computer that meters fuel and manages a jet engine in flight. BAE's Fort Wayne Controls and Avionics Solutions business designs, produces and supports FADECs for GE and CFM engines across Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier and Embraer aircraft: more than 25,000 engines carried Fort Wayne FADECs by 2015, and the FADEC Alliance joint venture with Safran delivered its 10,000th electronic engine controller for the CFM LEAP engine family in 2025, with production shared between Fort Wayne and Fougères, France. The Fort Wayne site is also the company's U.S. aftermarket service centre for the line. Its second Fort Wayne business, C4ISR Systems, builds airborne tactical radios — in October 2024 the Army awarded BAE a five-year contract with a $460 million ceiling for the AN/ARC-231A Multi-mode Aviation Radio Set, the release datelined Fort Wayne and stating the radios "will be developed and produced at BAE Systems' facility in Fort Wayne, Indiana"; the set entered operational use on Army helicopters in September 2025. Flight-deck and cabin systems and wiring harnesses round out the documented lines.

Sources:

1. BAE Systems, "Life in Fort Wayne" (company careers site) — the presence since the 1980s; the south site's 335,000 square feet and the north engineering hub's 50,000; the Controls and Avionics Solutions and C4ISR Systems businesses.
2. Scannell Properties, completion release, 7 October 2015 — the 334,000-square-foot building; the 23 September 2015 opening; about 1,100 employees; the fifteen years in the 1940s-era Taylor Street building where B-17 parts were originally made.
3. City of Fort Wayne, Confirming Resolution R-13-11-18 (2013) — 1,000 full-time jobs retained, $55 million payroll, the project's $42.22 million cost.
4. Journal Gazette reporting, June 2016 — the $46 million building, the ten-year lease, the planned workforce reduction of less than 10 percent; and Fort Wayne magazine's "Made in Fort Wayne" — the FADEC as the plant's "bread and butter," more than 25,000 engines fitted, the U.S. aftermarket service centre.
5. FADEC Alliance / ADS Group industry news (2025) — the 10,000th LEAP electronic engine controller; production at Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Fougères, France; the installed base above 30,000 engines.
6. BAE Systems, news release, 15 October 2024 (Fort Wayne dateline) — the $460 million-ceiling Army contract for the AN/ARC-231/A Multi-mode Aviation Radio Set, developed and produced in Fort Wayne; U.S. Department of Defense contract notice, 10 April 2024 ($459,802,408, BAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems, Fort Wayne); BAE release, September 2025 — the set operationally ready on Army rotary-wing aircraft.