Why HIP Is Essential for Commercial Aerospace Manufacturing

When a commercial aircraft takes off, every engine blade, bracket, and structural casting is expected to perform flawlessly, not just on day one, but for thousands of flights over many years. Reliability is non-negotiable. At Kittyhawk, we’ve spent more than four decades helping aerospace manufacturers achieve that reliability through advanced Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP).

Hot Isostatic Pressing is all about improving material integrity. During HIP, components are exposed to high temperatures and uniform isostatic pressure inside a sealed vessel. This combination reduces internal porosity and micro-cracks, densifying metals and advanced alloys.

HIP helps ensure that the parts powering modern aircraft can handle years of extreme temperatures, vibration, and mechanical stress without losing performance.

Commercial aircraft rely heavily on high-performance materials such as titanium and nickel-based superalloys. These alloys are engineered to withstand enormous thermal and mechanical loads, but even the most advanced casting or manufacturing process can leave behind small pores or imperfections.

By removing internal defects, HIP helps aerospace customers extend part life, reduce in-service failures, and maintain predictable performance across the entire fleet. Turbine blades and vanes, structural castings, stators, brackets, and fuel system components are just a few examples of parts that benefit from HIP every day.

As the commercial aerospace industry leans further into lightweighting and advanced manufacturing, HIP becomes even more essential. Complex castings and metal additive manufacturing (AM) parts all rely on HIP to reach flight-ready quality.

Additive Manufacturing, in particular, introduces porosity inherent to the layer-by-layer build process. HIP is a key step to restore density, boost fatigue strength, and gives manufacturers the confidence to use printed parts in safety-critical systems.

With three facilities across the West Coast, Kittyhawk supports commercial aerospace programs with production-scale HIP services designed around consistency, efficiency, and reliability. We process titanium, aluminum, steel, superalloys, and other advanced materials with the fastest turnaround times in the industry to keep manufacturing schedules on track.

We also operate under AS9100 and NADCAP quality systems, ensuring every part is processed in an environment that meets the highest industry expectations.

What’s next? Our team continues to invest in new HIP technologies, vessels, and other innovations so our aerospace partners have the trusted support they need today and tomorrow.