[rotorwrench]

My partner has been in aviation since the 50s and his specialty was channel chrome cylinder plating. He is 84 now and still building the occasional aircraft engine but not with chrome or even nickel bores any more. They used to have no less than three cylinder shops here in San Antonio but now there all gone. One of the old locations and a portion of the airbase out at the old Kelly AFB are super fund sites to be cleaned up for this stuff. General aviation has been affected terribly by the prices to make all these parts. The military & security, airlines, offshore, and air ambulance will be around as long as we need them but the prices will keep going up until technology changes. An aircraft that used to cost $50K is near $2Mil now and that is just in the space of 40 to 50-years.