To sustain innovation, ESAero is a big fan of brainstorming sessions, particularly with its senior consultants. It is also a fan of going back to basics with designs that start life on a whiteboard rather than a computer screen. “We are young but we have an old-school aircraft design process. A lot of people will sit down at a computer and use a program to start a design. There's nothing wrong with that—but from our point of view that's still a program which someone designed. We start by drawing on a board with no limits to the configuration.”

As an organization with just seven employees, the entire turnover is dedicated to 100% R&D. The measure of whether adequate progress is being maintained in innovation is simply “how the customer reacts and if they keep coming back.”

As for the bigger picture view of the climate in aerospace innovation, Gibson believes it is “not super-strong. People think we may not be being innovative enough, but because of limitations on R&D and on budgets in general, there is not enough being done. However, if [U.S. budget] sequestration hits, then we could be in crisis mode.”

People and close contacts are key when it comes to keeping the doors open to innovation, says Gibson. “It's about relationships, getting to the right people and getting them to trust you and try you out.” The environment is tough for small companies. By the same token, it is “almost getting easier on the hardware side because people are realizing there are cheaper ways of doing things. It all depends on how the large primes react. They're in a holding pattern—but at some point they will have to restart R&D.”