industry 2020 IN THE REAR-VIEW MIRROR S T O R Y T B Y D A V E H U G H E S he pandemic hit 2020 second-quarter sales in general aviation manufacturing so hard it brought some production lines to a halt for a month or more in a jolt that the industry is still recovering from this year. On March 2, Pete Bunce, the president and chief executive office for the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, told the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Aviation that the industry still needs help to do things like make sure aerospace workers with vital skills stay in the aviation industry. 50 avionics news * may 2021 " A year ago, we couldn't have anticipated that some of our manufacturing facilities would be shuttered for over a month as we worked on the local restrictions (of the pandemic), " Bunce said. " And when we were able to bring workers back, we had to pivot like they did in World War II - like the auto industry pivoted to making aircraft. We pivoted to making personal protective gear, ventilator equipment and things like that because basically the supply chain was so disrupted that we didn't have the parts and pieces that we needed to either fix our aircraft on the maintenance side of the house or build new ones. "