| Aeropreg İleri Kompozit Malzemeler · AS9100 Certified |
Issue 05 · September 2026 |
The Prepreg Brief
Aerospace · Defense · Marine — a monthly note from the Aeropreg team
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In this issue
| 01 Editor’s note |
04 Raw materials & markets |
| 02 Sector radar |
05 Technical corner |
| 03 From Aeropreg |
06 Outlook & compliance |
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01 · Editor’s note
A month that rewards the ones who planned their capacity early
Welcome back to The Prepreg Brief. If August was quiet, September made up for it. Europe put a commercial launcher into orbit for the first time, satellite lines in Toulouse started turning out carbon-fiber structures by the dozen, and here in Türkiye the first production-configuration Hürjet took to the air. None of these are one-off headlines — each is a program that committed to composite capacity months or years ago, and is now collecting on that decision.
That is the thread we keep coming back to: across aerospace, defense, and marine, the constraint is rarely demand anymore — it is qualified composite capacity, and the lead time to secure it. On the raw-material side the picture is steadier than earlier in the year: acrylonitrile and PAN precursor costs recovered off their mid-year lows in August but demand stays soft, and freight is easing after a short late-summer climb. The energy and feedstock risk that a tense Strait of Hormuz keeps in the background hasn’t gone away, but it is a watch item this month, not a shock.
On our side, we will be exhibiting at TURKCOMPOSITE 2026 in Istanbul, 21 to 23 October — Türkiye’s own composites technology platform. If you are on a qualification timeline, heading into a rate increase, or rethinking where your prepreg comes from, we would genuinely rather talk early than scramble late. There is a way to reach us at the end of this note.
— Ahmet Uslu, Chairman of the Board
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02 · Sector radar
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AEROSPACE
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Europe reaches orbit commercially — on a carbon-fiber launcher
Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum, a two-stage rocket built around carbon-fiber composite structures, delivered its payload to orbit — reported as the first successful orbital delivery by a commercial European launch company. In parallel, Airbus began building the first sixty-six LEO satellites of the EU’s IRIS² constellation in Toulouse using carbon-fiber composite structures. Two data points, one message: Europe’s space cadence is now a standing, multi-year source of composite structural demand.
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DEFENSE
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First production-configuration Hürjet flies
The first production-representative Hürjet jet trainer made its maiden flight on 30 August, part of an initial batch for the Turkish Air Force, with several more airframes expected flying before year-end. Modern trainer and light-combat platforms lean heavily on composite structures for weight and part-count reduction, so a program moving from prototype into production configuration is exactly where composite demand shifts from one-off builds to serial supply — a transition worth watching across the domestic value chain.
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DEFENSE
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US Navy backs multifunctional composites for UAVs
Under a Phase II contract with the US Navy, Continuous Composites will advance its CF3D process to embed electrical pathways directly into load-bearing composite components — building toward a class of UAV structures that are part airframe, part wiring harness. Multifunctional composites like this point to where uncrewed platforms are heading: fewer discrete assemblies, less mass, and a manufacturing route that treats structure and system as one part rather than two.
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MARINE
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Electric amphibious seaplane built on carbon-fiber prepreg
Noemi Aerospace selected FAA-approved carbon-fiber prepreg and structural paste adhesive for the airframe of its all-electric amphibious seaplane, a design that has to be light enough to fly and tough enough to operate off water. It is a neat illustration of the aerospace-marine overlap we sit in the middle of — the same prepreg discipline that qualifies a wing is what lets a hull-and-airframe hybrid survive the marine environment.
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03 · From Aeropreg
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FEATURED
Meet us at TURKCOMPOSITE 2026 — Istanbul, 21–23 October
We will be exhibiting at TURKCOMPOSITE 2026 (formerly Meet4Composite) at the Istanbul Fair Center — Türkiye’s own composites technology platform, organized with the Composite Manufacturers Association. It brings composite manufacturers, raw-material and resin suppliers, and buyers together across aerospace, defense, automotive, energy, and construction under one roof.
What we bring to those conversations is not a pitch so much as an option: aerospace, defense, marine, and automotive reinforcement prepregs — carbon, glass, quartz/cyanate ester, and hybrids — produced in Denizli under AS9100, with the responsiveness of a partner who answers the phone. If you would like to sit down with us at the show, or set up a call around it, let us know and we will make the time.
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Why meet us
AS9100-certified prepreg from a vertically aware group — carbon fiber fabric since 2011, prepreg since 2024. Carbon, glass, quartz/cyanate ester and hybrid systems for aerospace, defense and marine, with supply-base diversification and shorter communication lines as the practical draw.
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Set up a conversation
Going to be at TURKCOMPOSITE, or want a call around the show? Write to us and we will arrange a time. Bring the part, the timeline, or just the problem — early conversations are the ones that save programs weeks later.
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04 · Raw materials & markets
ACN and PAN precursor — off the lows, but demand still soft
After propylene and acrylonitrile (ACN) sold off through June and July, prices recovered in August while end-demand stayed weak — a rebound in cost, not yet in pull. Indicative index levels for September put Northeast Asia ACN around US$1.64/kg (roughly flat month-on-month), with Europe near US$1.75/kg and North America near US$1.57/kg; treat these as directional and verify against your own contract terms. The energy and feedstock risk premium tied to a tense Strait of Hormuz remains a live background factor for the propylene-to-ACN chain — not a number on the invoice this month, but a reason to keep a margin of caution in longer feedstock planning.
Aerospace-grade fiber — steady demand, quiet on new capacity
The multi-year demand story is intact — independent market work still frames global carbon fiber at roughly US$6.4 billion in 2026 growing toward US$9 billion by 2031 (about 7% a year) — but this month brought no major new aerospace-grade capacity announcement from the large fiber producers, so the near-term supply picture is unchanged rather than looser. The more interesting movement is regional: Türkiye’s domestic composite supply chain keeps maturing around home-grown carbon fiber and local converters, which over time is what turns “single-source risk” into “second-source option” for buyers in this region.
Freight and landed cost
Ocean freight is easing after a short late-summer climb: Drewry’s World Container Index sat near US$4,465/FEU in early September, softening after three straight weekly gains. The lanes are diverging — transpacific rates firmer into peak season while Asia–Europe eased as Suez routing returned — so landed cost this month depends heavily on which corridor your material moves through. As always, we would rather compare notes with you directly than lean on a single index snapshot.
Industry conversation
With upstream costs off their lows but far from settled, contract-based price revision and pass-through mechanisms remain a live topic in the sector. The direction of travel still looks like measured, predictable frameworks rather than ad-hoc surcharges — predictability being worth more to most programs than the last percent of price.
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05 · Technical corner
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Shelf life, out-time and the cold chain: the clock that runs on your prepreg
Every prepreg carries two clocks, and confusing them is one of the quieter causes of scrapped parts. Shelf life is how long the roll stays usable in frozen storage — typically twelve months at −18°C for an epoxy system like our AEP 55 family. Out-time is the separate, cumulative budget of hours the material can spend at shop-floor temperature before the resin has advanced too far to lay up and cure properly — on the order of a few weeks for the same system. The critical point is that out-time is additive: every trip out of the freezer spends part of it, and it never comes back.
Physically, the resin is slowly B-staging the whole time it is warm. As out-time is consumed, tack and drape fall off, resin flow during cure drops, and the risk of elevated void content and incomplete consolidation climbs — often without any visible sign on the roll. That is why the fix is procedural, not visual. The single most important habit: bring a sealed roll fully up to room temperature before breaking the moisture barrier bag. Open it cold and atmospheric moisture condenses straight onto the material, seeding porosity you will only discover after cure. A documented warm-up time, logged freezer in/out events, and a running out-time tally per roll are what keep an AS9100 lay-up defensible.
None of this is exotic — it is discipline, and it is where a lot of otherwise-good programs lose yield. If you would like our handling and storage guidance for a specific system, or want to talk through cold-chain logistics before your first shipment, our application engineering team is glad to help.
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06 · Outlook & compliance
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Outlook — next 30 days
The calendar is trade-show-heavy this cycle, with TURKCOMPOSITE 2026 in Istanbul (21–23 October) on ours, and the demand tone across aerospace, defense and marine stays firm. Expect the conversation to keep circling the same constraint — qualified composite capacity and second-source options — rather than raw demand. With ACN off its lows and freight easing, the input backdrop is calmer than it was in the spring; the smart move is using that calm to lock in qualification and supply lead time before the next tightening.
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Regulatory watch
EU Regulation 2021/821 (dual-use) export licensing remains the operational friction point for European-origin feedstock and finished material moving cross-border. Carbon fiber’s standing as a strategic material under the EU Critical Raw Materials Act stays worth tracking for medium-term sourcing — part of why regional, qualified second sources are moving up buyers’ agendas.
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Aeropreg İleri Kompozit Malzemeler
Denizli OSB · Türkiye | AS9100
info@aeropreg.com · www.aeropreg.com
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© 2026 Aeropreg İleri Kompozit Malzemeler · All rights reserved |
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