Air show signs off in style

Air show signs off in style
By Rasheed Kappan,DH News Service,Bangalore:
With one final Ballet in the Air, the Suryakirans signed off in style signalling the end of an eventful five days of Aero-India 2009 at the Yelahanka Air Base on Sunday.
Bucking recessionary trends, the airshow sent an emphatic message: That the potent military market is buoyant enough to stay firmly afloat, indicated in good measure by the slew of agreements inked by participating domestic and global aerospace players.

Nearly two lakh general visitors, over 50,000 business visitors, 303 overseas participants and 292 domestic firms. By size and turnout, this airshow was definitely bigger, grander.

But what stood out were the 588 B2B meetings between participating companies and governments. This increased action on the business turf made much sense to the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) eager to tap into the multi-crore offset market, awaiting a boom once the mega military deals take shape.


Certifying the success of the show organised by the Defence Ministry and moderated by the Confederation of Indian Industry was the Confederation’s Deputy Director General Gurpal Singh.

“The overall impression given to us from the participants has been very positive. Even the seven-member Chinese delegation had good discussions with Indian PSUs. SMEs could expose themselves to overseas participants. There were a lot of dialogues.”

“The airshow also brought forth the big job potential in the aerospace sector,” he explained.
He said the SMEs could exploit the “India Rizing Fund,” the Rs 750-crore venture capital fund, for investing in SMEs engaged in producing defence equipment. This fund was launched at the show.

The big deals were still to come. But ‘Aero-India 2009’ had many smaller ones in store:

Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) between Augusta Westland and Tata Sons for an Indian Joint Venture firm to set up a final assembly line for manufacture of AW-119 helicopters in India; between Tata Advanced Materials Ltd (TAML) and global major, Saab, to manufacture structural composite components; between Boeing and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) to co-develop an analysis and experimentation centre in India.

Campaigning for the multi-billion dollar Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA), six firms, Lockheed Martin and Boeing from the United States, MiG from Russia, the French firm Dassault, the Swedish Saab and the EADS consortium of British, German, Spanish and Italian companies, made big noises at the airshow.

Spotlights were constantly on the competing combat aircraft, with the firms taking the celebrity route. While Lockheed Martin had India’s only Olympic gold medallist, Abhinav Bindra fly its F-16N Super Viper, Boeing brought in India’s first cosmonaut Wg Cmdr (Retd) Rakesh Sharma and Congress MP Naveen Jindal to fly its F/A18 Super Hornet fighter jet.

On the home front, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) delivered the first batch of five Advanced Light Helicopters (ALHs) to the Ecuador Air Force. BEML announced the setting up of an aerospace manufacturing division. Helicopter firm JSC and its Indian JV partner, the Vectra Group unveiled plans to launch a Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul (MRO) facility near Chandigarh to service Russian-made civil aircraft.

With agreements as these, “Aero-India 2009” seemed a precursor to bigger contracts in the Indian defence sector. All indications were firmly on an even grander show of the country’s military business muscle, the next time the Aero-India comes calling. That would be between February 9 and 13, 2011, at the same venue.


Close shave for pilots

Bangalore, DHNS: The pilot and co-pilot of a Lockheed Martin F16IN 'Super Viper' of the United States Air Force (USAF) had a providential escape on Sunday, after two of the jet’s tyres burst soon after it landed following a sortie at the Aero India 2009. The pilot Paul Randall had just landed his aircraft when the flight controls in the cockpit detected a tyre burst in the rear tyre on the right of the fighter jet at 2.00 pm.