sp's aviation february 2012

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AviationSP’s

www.spsaviation.net

An SP Guide PublicAtion

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February • 2012

News Flies. We Gather Intelligence. Every Month. From India.

FINALLY RAFALE: ThE WINNER

0

business aviation: asian tigers

military: rise of the dragon

air-to-air missiles interview: william

blair, President, raytheon india

w w w . s p g u i d e p u b l i c a t i o n s . c o m

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Issue 2 • 2012 SP’S AVIATION 1

fIrST

6 Enhanced Design

TEcKNOw

7 Spacious & cost-effective

cIVIl

14 regional Aviation Travellers’ Delight

18 Business Aviation Asian Tigers

MIlITAry

22 Strategy Rise of ‘The Dragon’

26 Air-to-Air Missiles What’s New Around

SPAcE

29 Debris Mess in Orbit

INTErVIEw

31 OEM ‘We feel we’re a trusted

partner to India’

Winning the RaceFifty-four months after the Indian Government floated

its largest and most ambitious acquisition effort for combat

aircraft ever, it has chosen the French Rafale to meet its

MMRCA requirement.

Cover Photo: Rafale’s production line at Merignac, France. The current production rate delivers 11 aircraft a year,

with around six on the line at any one time at Dassault’s Merignac site.

Image By: Dassault Aviation

•

INDuSTry

32 OEM ‘India is the cornerstone of our

defence business’: Rolls Royce

RegulaR DepaRtments

4 A word from Editor

8 NewswithViews – Boeing’s Blended Behemoth

– 49 per cent FDI by Foreign Airlines

12 forum MMRCA & Beyond

34 Hall of fame Peter Twiss

35 NewsDigest

40 lastword No other Way Out

TaBle of ConTenTsIssue 2 • 2012

AviationSP’s

news Flies. We gather intelligence. every Month. From india.

An SP Guide PublicAtion

next issue: Regional Aviation in India - Prospects

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AviationSP’s

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AN SP GUIDE PUBLICATION

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FEBRUARY • 2012

News Flies. We Gather Intelligence. Every Month. From India.

FINALLY RAFALE: THE WINNER

PAGE 10

BUSINESS AVIATION IN INDIA

REGIONAL AVIATION: RISE OF THE DRAGON

AIR-TO-AIR MISSILES INTERVIEW: WILLIAM

BLAIR, PRESIDENT, RAYTHEON INDIA

SP's Aviation Cover 02-12 final.indd 1 24/02/12 4:11 PM

lead story

indian government

has begun price negotiations with

the Dassault to purchase their

Rafale to fulfill the iaF’s requirement

a medium multirole combat

aircraft.

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2 SP’S AVIATION Issue 2 • 2012 www.spsaviation.net

PuBlIsheR AND eDITOR-IN-ChIeF

Jayant Baranwal

AssIsTANT GROuP eDITOR

R. Chandrakanth

seNIOR VIsITING eDITOR

Air Marshal (Retd) V.K. Bhatia

seNIOR TeChNICAl GROuP eDITORs

Air Marshal (Retd) B.K. Pandey

lt General (Retd) Naresh Chand

seNIOR COPy eDITOR &

CORResPONDeNT

sucheta Das Mohapatra

CONTRIBuTORs

INDIA

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Group Captain (Retd) A.K. sachdev

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euROPe

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usA & CANADA

leRoy Cook

ChAIRMAN & MANAGING DIReCTOR

Jayant Baranwal

PlANNING & BusINess DeVelOPMeNT

executive Vice President: Rohit Goel

ADMIN & COORDINATION

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survi Massey

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18 AsianTigers

26 what’s New Around

14 Traveller’s Delight

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A Word from Editor


The MMRCA deal brings with it a staggering 50 per cent of the mammoth $15-20 billion deal which should

come as a boon to the Indian aviation industry – both,

public and private – in terms of high technologies’ infusion

Jayant Baranwal

Publisher & Editor-in-Chief

Finally, the winner is out. On January 31, in spite of its preoccupations with the assembly elec-tions in many states, the UPA Government took a bold and much awaited decision to announce the L1 (lowest bidder) in the closely contested fight between the two finalists, French Dassault

Rafale and the European Eurofighter Typhoon. And the winner is the ‘Rafale’. For Dassault Aviation, India’s selec-tion of the Rafale is not only perceived as a sweet vindica-tion of sorts but also, quite literally, the ‘Kiss of Life’. Earlier, Dassault had felt slighted by India’s decision to go for a global tender, when the Indian Air Force (IAF) had express-ly stated at the turn of the last millennium it wanted more Mirage 2000 fighter jets. Winning the race enables Dassault to also open Rafale’s export account, albeit belatedly, which had the global aerospace industry baffled for years over its lack of commercial success.

Not surprisingly, the declaration of the winner elicited mixed responses ranging from utter joy in the winning camp to gloom and despair for the losing side. On the po-litical front, while the French government of President Sar-kozy expressed its delight, the British showed their disap-pointment with Prime Minister David Cameron stating that he would request the Indian Government to reconsider its decision. But, the Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony has been candid in his statements that technical and financial merits will not be overruled by geopolitical considerations in the MMRCA deal.

Be that as it may, it is hoped that the remaining issues of the deal are sorted out expeditiously and the contract inked during the early months of the financial year 2012-13. It would kick-start the time clock for the IAF to be able to receive the first batch of “off-the-shelf’’ 18 aircraft to form its first MMRCA squadron in 2015-16. It is also hoped that the IAF would exercise its option for more aircraft in the near future to enable it to ultimately raise about 10 MMRCA squadrons. It would certainly help the IAF regaining the ‘numeric’ vis-à-vis its highly depleted combat aircraft strength. But that is not all. The MMRCA deal brings with it a staggering 50 per cent of the mammoth $15-20 bil-lion deal which should come as a boon to the Indian avia-

tion industry – both, public and private – in terms of high technologies’ infusion. In selecting the new technologies, perhaps the IAF – the most affected service in the field of military aviation – could take the lead in identifying key technologies that would help the indigenised aviation in-dustry provide it with weapon systems and platforms in fu-ture to boost its operational capabilities. It would be sinful to forget that, the very reason for which India has opted to spend astronomical amounts of foreign exchange for the MMRCA deal is to acquire, absorb and, indigenise as much of the high technologies that come with the ‘offset’ pro-grammes of this landmark acquisition. India simply cannot afford to throw away this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stand on its own feet.

Lastly, do visit us at the upcoming ‘India Aviation 2012’ at Hyderabad (March 14-18) and later, at the Delhi ‘Defexpo India 2012’ (March 29-April 1) where, incidentally, we will also be the proud, sole and exclusive official media partner.

In the meantime, Happy Reading.

PROUD PARTNER OF THE INDIAN ARMED FORCES.

www.dassault-aviation.fr

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DAS_50Inde_210x267_SPA_uk_DAS_50Inde_210x267_SPA_uk 08/07/11 15:26 Page1


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CeSSNA’S CITATION TeN PrOTOTyPe has made its first flight. The flight lasted more than two hours and included tests of stability and control, handling quali-ties, functional operations including the autopilot and

auto throttle system, engine operability and avionics before landing at Wichita, Kansas.

“It took a significant amount of work by a large number of people to get us to this milestone today and I am happy to report that the aircraft performed exceptionally well,” said Michael Voigt, Cessna’s engineering test pilot who flew the Ten prototype. “All systems functioned as expected including the Garmin G5000 avionics system. We are looking forward to a successful flight test programme and the Federal Avia-tion Administration (FAA) certification.”

FAA type certification is on track for mid-2013 with first aircraft deliveries planned for the second half of 2013.

“Our first flight was a great success. We have a great team working on this project and I know they will take this dominant aircraft up a notch,” said Kelly Reich, business leader for the Cessna Citation X and Ten.

The Ten is a mid-size aircraft with updated design and performance, enabling it to get to altitude faster and travel

farther than the Citation X (Model 750). First announced at the 2010 NBAA convention, the Citation Ten is designed for greater fuel-efficiency and increased comfort for up to nine passengers and two pilots.

Two Rolls-Royce AE 3007C2 engines will take a 36,600 pound (16,600 kilogramme) MTOW Citation Ten off the ground in 5,150 feet (1,569 metres) and give the aircraft a maximum cruise speed of 527 knots an hour (977 kilo-metres) and a certified ceiling of 51,000 feet (15,545 me-tres). The Ten has a maximum range of 3,242 nautical miles (6,008 kilometres), putting city pairings such as New York-London, Boston-San Francisco, London-Dubai and Miami-Seattle within convenient one-hop flights.

The Ten is 15 inches longer than the Citation X, pro-viding extra passenger legroom in the forward club seating area. With Cessna’s proprietary cabin technology solution, the Ten delivers touch-screen control to the passenger, max-imising the digital entertainment experience. SP

E-mail your comments to: [email protected]

E n h a n C E d Design Cessna Citation Ten

prototype makes first flight

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ITAlIAN AIrcrAfT mANufAcTurer TecNAm has recently unveiled the Tecnam P92 Sea-Sky Hydroplane. The sixth generation development builds on the suc-cess of both the P92 Echo Classic and P92 Eaglet to of-

fer potential customers seeking an innovative, spacious and cost-effective seaplane.

Requiring a take-off run of less than 200 metres, cou-pled with an impressive climb rate and a 100 hp engine, the Tecnam P92 Sea-Sky Hydroplane affords ease of operation, both on the water (lakes, rivers or sea) and in the air.

Tecnam aeroplanes are known for offering outstanding

value. One reason for the low-cost Tecnam P92 Sea-Sky Hy-droplane is that it is produced at Tecnam’s new composites production facility, home to both the Tecnam P2008 and Tecnam P Twenty-Ten, in Capua, Italy.

“Our Tecnam P92 Sea-Sky Hydroplane offers you the pleasure of enjoying both blue waters and blue skies,’’ said Paolo Pascale, Tecnam’s Managing Director. SP

E-mail your comments to: [email protected]

SpaciouS& Cost-effeCtIve

Tecnam introduces the P92 Sea-Sky Hydroplane

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IT wAS IN SP’S Aviation, Issue 6 of year 2007, we had reported the successful testing of Boeing’s X-48B ‘blend-ed wing body’ (BWB) experimental jet aircraft. The 227-kg three-engine jet with a 6.4 m wingspan was engi-

neered by Boeing Phantom Works in cooperation with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the US Air Force Research Laboratory. Years of research and toil, design and development, wind tunnel testing and ground trials had of time coalesced into one moment when the un-manned X-48B took to the skies for the first time on July 20, 2007, piloted remotely from the ground by the Boeing test pilot. Since then, more than four years have passed. Even though officially denied by the Boeing spokespersons, is there truth in the news doing the rounds on the information highways, or is it nothing more than e-rumour? Then, has Boeing had a change of heart to finally go in for ‘giant’ airliner to rival the Airbus A380?

In the 1990s, the two biggest makers of passenger airliners and fierce rivals had propagated differing theories of air travel. While the Airbus came up with the ‘hub and spoke’ concept which called for a mix of big and small aircraft, Boeing stuck to the idea of suitable mid-sized aircraft for its ‘point-to-point’ concept, seemingly favoured by the air travellers of today. Air-bus produced the massive A380 which with a seating capacity of up to 800 seats in support of the ‘hub-to-hub’ part of the air trav-el is the world’s largest commercial airliner today. Boeing on the other hand continued to struggle to master its highly fuel-efficient, light-weight ‘composite’ 787 Dreamliner 250-300 seat to support its ‘point-to-point’ concept. Both the A380 and B787 were plagued with a series of delays but the Airbus stole a four-year lead with the commercial launch of A380 in October 2007 versus Boeing which handed over the first B787 to its launch customer late last year.

Be that as it may, both the rivals soon realised the merits of both concepts vis-à-vis passenger capacity and fuel ef-

ficiency. Airbus quickly got on to the A350 ‘composite’ an-swer to the Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, finally taking shape as the A350XWB design. But having accumulated $13 billion (`65,000 crore) in development costs, it is stuck with the A380 at least for a couple of decades. Whereas if the story about its roll-out in the near future is true, Boeing’s blended behemoth could prove to be the “ultimate Airbus crusher” in the perennial war between the two ‘giants’. How?

There are many significant advantages in the ‘blended wing and fuselage’ design, also known as ‘blended wing

body (BWB)’, the most impor-tant being the lift to drag (L/D) ratio which is expected to in-crease by an amazing 50 per cent. Reason: it is not only the wings but practically the entire airframe (thanks to the blend-ed design) which contributes in providing lift to the aircraft. This results in an overall weight reduction of the aircraft by 25 per cent, making it an estimated 33 per cent more fuel-efficient than the A380, putting the mas-sive $13 billion investment by Airbus in its A380 programme in grave jeopardy.

High airframe rigidity is an-other key factor in the ‘BWB’ technology. It reduces turbu-lence and creates less stress on the airframe which again adds to fuel-efficiency, giving the 797 a tremendous 16,000 km range with as many as 1,000 passen-gers on board, cruising comfort-ably at M 0.88 or 1,050 kmph, which gives yet another advan-

tage over the tube-and-wing designed A380’s 912 kmph or M 0.78. Minor disadvantages in the BWB design such as in-herent instability could be easily taken care of ‘fly-by-wire’ controls, which in any case have become a standard fit on today’s airliners.

The exact date for introduction of the 797 remains unclear, but when it happens, Boeing will not only be able to regain lost ground to Airbus’ A380, but also leapfrog miles ahead of its archrival in the race for civilian aircraft supremacy. SP

—Air Marshal (Retd) V.K. Bhatia

Boeing’s Blended BehemothBoeing is preparing a 1,000-passenger jetliner that could reshape the air travel industry. Its radical “blended wing and fuselage” design has been developed by Boeing in cooperation with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center. The mammoth air-craft will have a wing span of 265 feet compared to 211 feet of its 747, and it has been designed to fit within the newly created air terminals for the 555-seat Airbus A380, which is 262 feet wide. Boeing decided to kill its 747X stretched Super Jumbo in 2003 after little interest was shown for it, but continued to develop the 797 at its ‘Phantom Works’ Facility in Long Beach, California.

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The TImINg Of The decision to permit FDI up to 49 per cent by foreign carriers into airlines in India, a move held up for long on account of political compul-sions and unfounded security concerns, could not have

been more opportune. Despite the impressive annual growth rate in the airline industry at an average of 17 per cent, with the exception of one, all the other airlines are incurring losses and desperately need infusion of funds. As airlines are find-ing it difficult to raise working capital locally, FDI certainly appears to be a viable option and an easy way out of the mo-rass. However, FDI would be truly beneficial to the industry and the nation if it is accompanied by rec-iprocity aimed at mutual benefit.

Yet to be finally cleared by the government, the proposal in re-spect of foreign direct investment (FDI) of 49 per cent, up from 24 per cent initially suggested by the Ministry of Civil Aviation and 26 per cent as recommended by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, will come as a lifeline to the industry. The industry is currently struggling to survive in a hostile operating environment plagued with rising price of fuel, airport and other charges amongst the highest in the world, weakening of the Indian rupee, huge debt repay-ment liabilities, mounting losses and fierce competition. Financial distress of airlines has been com-pounded as financial institutions in India are not willing to extend support to the loss-making carri-ers. The decision, however, sym-bolises fulfillment of the commitment to the private airlines by the Indian Prime Minister about two months back to “look into their financial difficulties”. Although FDI in the airline in-dustry will provide fresh avenues for overall upgrade in tech-nology and operational capability, it is somewhat surprising that there is lack of unanimity amongst the private carriers themselves on this issue. Also significant is the fact that the decision by the government comes in the face of opposition to FDI in other sectors of the economy such as in retail trade.

The rapidly growing airline industry and the enormous

potential the relatively untapped Indian market has to offer, should present a lucrative opportunity for investment by for-eign carriers seeking to penetrate the Asian markets and to ac-quire the status of a global airline. As per initial indications, re-puted international carriers such as Etihad Airways, Singapore Airlines, Air Asia and British Airways are likely to be the first to invest. However, given the high levels of debt of airlines, stag-gering cumulative losses and prospects of speedy turnaround being somewhat remote, foreign carriers may not rush in as quickly with funds as would normally be expected. With sever-

al Indian carriers teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, a major part of their investment would be used for clearing debts and compensat-ing for cumulative losses. Besides, the state of affairs with the global airline industry itself is also not too inspiring financially. As such, it may be a difficult decision for them to tread into an uncertain, highly competitive and price sen-sitive Indian market where fares are often depressed below cost. Also, airlines would perhaps be more willing to invest if they have control over the operations of the airline, a facility that FDI limit of 49 per cent may preclude.

Given the afflictions of the in-dustry as a whole, it is unlikely that FDI alone will turn the air-line industry around. Paucity of infrastructure and archaic regu-latory framework are two ma-jor impediments to the healthy growth of the industry. While in-frastructure development would call for sizeable resources which

under the existing dispensation can be better accessed through FDI, speedy action to reform the regulatory frame-work would require a profound change in mindsets.

There is no doubt that FDI will undoubtedly help the pri-vate carriers stabilise and tide over the crisis, but profitabil-ity may continue to be a distant dream. For the industry to remain viable in the long-term, the government will have to address the maladies and distortions that afflict the environ-ment Indian carriers have to operate in. SP

—Air Marshal (Retd) B.K. Pandey

49 per cent Fdi By Foreign airlinesIn a landmark decision aimed at allowing infusion of funds from foreign airlines to ailing Indian carriers, the government has paved the way for permitting foreign direct investment (FDI) up to 49 per cent. The Cabinet will have to approve this major policy shift as, of now, foreign airlines are not permitted any stake in Indian carriers. The Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said, “The aviation industry is under a lot of stress,” meaning it needs financial support. Currently, FDI up to 49 per cent and investment by NRIs up to 100 per cent is allowed on the automatic route, but no FDI by foreign airlines in Indian carriers is permitted.

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FIfTy-fOur mONThS AfTer The Indian Govern-ment floated what was without a doubt its largest and most ambitious acquisition effort for combat air-craft ever, it chose the French Rafale to meet its mon-

umental medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) re-quirement. For Dassault Aviation, the French company that builds the jet, the selection is, quite literally, the kiss of life. To open its export account, albeit belatedly, with the Indian deal is of enormous prestige value to an aircraft that has had the aerospace industry baffled for years over its lack of commercial success. With the IAF’s stamp of approval, and the billions of dollars that will now re-energise Dassault as a manufacturer of combat aircraft, the Rafale programme gets to shake off years of tough luck, international intrigue and criticism that it was a programme cursed never to succeed. For Dassault, winning a deal with one of the world’s most discerning air forces —and a process that is more demand-ing than most—makes up for the steady stream of disap-pointments that preceded the victory.

Six years ago, well before the Indian Government had formally floated the MMRCA tender, Dassault abruptly with-drew the Mirage 2000-V from the sweepstakes, putting forth a package based on the much newer Rafale jet. At the time, the move was controversial, but was seen as Dassault’s ex-asperation with India’s decision not to simply buy more Mi-rages outright, as well as a recognition that the procurement process had expanded to include more capable aircraft like the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet. As it turned out, the de-cision was a good one, because while the IAF sulked at its original choice pulling out of the reckoning, the French Gov-ernment persuaded New Delhi to look at an aircraft that was very much a part of the same legacy and heritage. The Rafale, therefore, was in and comfortably so.

www.spsaviation.net10 SP’S AVIATION Issue 2 • 2012

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Winning the RaceFor Dassault, India’s selection of the Rafale is a sweet vindication

of sorts. The company had always felt slighted by India’s decision to

go for a global tender, when the IAF had expressly said it wanted

more Mirage 2000 fighter jets.

Dassault signs Mou with Reliance inDustRies

Dassault Aviation has en-tered into a memoran-dum of understanding

with Mukesh Ambani-pro-moted Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) for joint opportunities in defence and internal security, which will almost definitely involve cooperation in the ex-ecution of the MMRCA deal. The partnership will also pro-vide the French firm with a substantial offsets route into India—if it wins the MMRCA contract later this year, it commits to diverting $9-10 billion back into Indian industry. Industry watchers suggest that while RIL is a relatively new entrant into the defence sphere, the sheer size of the company and its backing will pro-vide it with great flexibility and absorptive power for technol-ogy coming in from abroad.

It may be remembered that RIL’s ambitious defence plans are being led by Dr Vivek Lall, who had been the chief of Boe-ing’s defence business in India, earlier. Lall, in fact also had headed the commercial aviation business of Boeing before switching over to the defence business of Seattle-based compa-ny. While it is unclear what areas Dassault and RIL will cooper-ate on, it would presumably be in the areas of complex manu-facturing, advanced systems and joint development aimed at the Indian defence market. Mukesh Ambani’s most visible link with Dassault so far has only been the Falcon 900EX executive jet that shuttles him around. •

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In April 2009, roughly two years after the MMRCA pro-curement process had begun, reports emerged that the Ra-fale had been dropped from the list of contenders because its technical bid did not make the Indian cut. While the report was denied by the Ministry of Defence, it provided the first real scare to a campaign that it was the Indian Government’s default choice. Over the months, Indian test teams flew the Rafale in India and France, testing the aircraft and assessing its combat capabilities. In February 2011, correctly sensing that a milestone in the procurement was close, Dassault for the first time publicly displayed Rafales at the Aero India 2011 show at Yelahanka, near Bangalore. Apart from a memorable flight display, the aircraft flew dignitaries like Member of Par-liament Navin Jindal. It was the first time the obsessively low-profile French firm was stepping out into the light, showing its aircraft off and reaching out to the public in any real sense. As it turned out, the aircraft received huge attention. Importantly, it was still considered to be an underdog in the competition, and one that had most odds stacked against it.

Two months later, just a day before the six companies’ commercial bids were to expire, Dassault and EADS Cassidian were picked out and instructed to extend the validity of their bids, signalling a shock elimination of the other four contend-ers—the Lockheed Martin F-16IN Super Viper, Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, Saab Gripen IN and UAC MiG-35. The down select created massive upheaval in the aerospace market, turning several notions on their heads. For starters, the IAF had asked the government to choose between two of the most modern but also most expensive aircraft in the competition. In several other aspects, it was an unexpected decision: the aircraft were heavy twin-engine fighters, not quite medium to light airplanes that the IAF had originally set out to procure to augment its Mirage fleet. Something was amiss, but it was put down to an expanded requirement and the parallel recognition that buying newer aircraft made better sense in the long-term, an idea that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) supported in full.

In November 2011, the Indian Government opened the sealed commercial bids of the two finalist contenders and began an elaborate process of divining a common lexicon to

judge which of the two aircraft was L1, the lowest bidder, in other words the most economical package judged from a veri-table matrix of criteria including unit cost, cost of spares and support, maintenance costs, technology transfer costs, etc. Re-ports at the time suggested that it was a wafer of a margin that separated the Eurofighter and the Rafale, throwing up the possibility of extended deliberations. The MoD’s benchmark-ing and selection process is still classified and is likely to be re-vealed in the weeks and months ahead, but it is likely to have been one of the most complex ever adopted. By all accounts, it took a herculean effort to arrive at a clear lowest bidder, but that is what the committee ultimately achieved through what sources say was a thoroughly empirical process that followed procedures to the last clause and left nothing to subjectivity.

For Dassault, India’s selection of the Rafale is a sweet vindi-cation of sorts. The company had always felt slighted by India’s decision to go for a global tender, when the IAF had express-ly said it wanted more Mirage 2000 fighter jets. That sense of entitlement was progressively eroded by the high-voltage campaigns that the Rafale’s rivals pitched in India, outshining, outclassing and outshouting the French aircraft on every plat-form. Indeed, India hadn’t even seen the Rafale in the flesh un-til a year before it emerged victorious. Some saw this as Das-sault diffidence, others as thorough professionalism in what is after all a serious procurement of a weapon platform and not a carnival. Dassault’s win is ironic in many ways, and even the company will acknowledge that this victory couldn’t have come a moment sooner. After a string of disappointments, most re-cently in the form of a scare in the UAE, Rafale had acquired the reputation of being the beautiful jet that nobody wanted to buy. The Indian deal kills many ghosts. SP

—SP’s Special Correspondent

MMRca evaluation Manual to be patenteD

The exhaustive and innovative matrix of procedures that the Indian Air Force and the government brought into play to evaluate six relatively disparate fighter aircraft

for the MMRCA requirement is to be patented and shared with friendly nations looking to purchase new jets. In the absence of any earlier experience in comparing such hugely different air-craft, in terms of weight-class, vintage and capabilities, the IAF was forced to evolve a fresh and objective method that left noth-ing to opinion and chance. Assessing over 600 performance pa-rameters, making a dramatic departure from the usual custom of treating flyaway price as an indicator of value and the entire method of distilling complex figures down to one consolidated figure indicating contract value has been a monumental effort, the details of which are certain to emerge over the next few months. Already, the IAF has received enquiries of interest in learning about how they went about doing it. For starters, Bra-zil, still grappling with a decision between the Rafale and Grip-en is understood to have asked the Indian Government for unof-ficial advice on how to make a good decision. Countries that will be participating in joint air exercises with the IAF over the next year have also unofficially expressed interest in being briefed about how the IAF made its choice and the various parameters that came into play while making the decision. Former Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik had first mooted the idea of patenting the MMRCA evaluation manual into a template for fair and prudent selection of advanced systems. •

euRojet’s final hope in inDia Rests with naval typhoon

Eurojet GmbH, the cooperative entity that builds the EJ200 turbofan engine for the Eurofighter Typhoon faces the pros-pect of never doing direct business with India, consider-

ing that the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) was its second and final chance to have the EJ200 power an aircraft for India. After losing out to GE in the race to power the LCA Tejas Mk.2, Eurojet (a partnership of Rolls-Royce, MTU Aero, Avio and ITP) had pegged its hopes on the MMRCA competition.

While the multi-billion dollar jet deal is far from over, and indications that EADS may protest the deal, there may be hope for Eurojet in the big prize. But in a worst case scenario, the only distant chance it has is with the concept naval Typhoon, which has been proposed as a fighter for the Indian Navy’s future air-craft carriers. However, there are indications that India’s future carriers are likely to involve catapult mechanisms to launch air-craft, while the naval Typhoon is being conceptualised as a ski-jump launched jet. •

MMRCA


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&MMRCA

Beyond

HAVINg demySTIfIed A Number of formulae in its quest for determining as to who should emerge as the ultimate winner of the MMRCA contract, the Indian Air Force (IAF) had, once again by burning the proverbial ‘midnight oil’, submitted its findings to the Ministry of Defence

by early December last year. But the IAF, along with most of the defence fraternity in the country, waited in vain during the closing days of the year for the announcement to come as a ‘New Year Gift’. Year 2012 dawned with the ‘mother of all de-fence deals’ still shrouded in the fog of uncertainty. Some die-hard doomsday pessimists went to the extent of prophesying that the deal may be called off in totality given the slowdown in India’s economy. But they were soon to lose to the ratio-nalists who reasoned India had travelled too far to backtrack without losing face and credibility in the international arena.

Heading the realists was the Air Chief Marshal N.A.K. Browne himself who in an early January interaction with me-dia optimistically predicted the ‘announcement’ by month end. And as usual, the Chief proved to be absolutely correct in his optimism. Even though the country was facing a tough political climate due to assembly elections in five different states, the UPA Government took a bold decision to announce the winner (L1) on January 31, in the closely fought contest between the two finalists French Dassault Rafale and the European Euro-fighter Typhoon. As anticipated, the declaration of the winner elicited mixed initial responses ranging from utter joy in the winning camp on one hand, to dark despair and gloom from the side that lost out. For French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was delighted to hear the news, it may come as a much needed political coup to soup up his chances of winning the shortly to be held next presidential elections. He was hopeful that contract negotiations will begin “very soon”. But while the Defence Ministry officials are actively engaged in fine-tuning the pricing details, including the cost of on-board weaponry and royalties for producing the aircraft in India; given the gov-ernment’s present financial worries and less than anticipated revenue collections, any hope of signing the contract before the expiry of the present financial year on March 31, appears remote. Then, there are other issues which could prove to be ‘spoil sport’ in the fiercely contested deal. First, the reported $5 million (`25 crore) difference per unit between the candidates to decide the L1 in favour of Rafale is exceptionally small in-dicating that this was a close race— practically a photo finish as per Jane’s Defence Weekly which cautioned, “This is just the first step—Rafale has been selected as the preferred bidder but any student of Indian procurement knows that this means nothing until the contract is physically signed.”

On its part, EADS was still hopeful of somehow turning the deal around in its favour. The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, was openly disappointed with the outcome and reacted, “I would request the Indian Government to re-consider the fighter jet deal.” But the French plane maker Dassault is so desperate to land its first export customer for the Rafale, that it will do everything possible not to lose the initiative of having been declared the ‘preferred bidder’. Welcoming India’s decision to buy the ‘Rafale’, President Sarkozy promised that France would meet all Indian re-quirements connected with the ‘deal’.

Be that as it may, from the IAF’s point of view, it is hoped that the deal is successfully negotiated during the initial

The reason for which India has opted to spend such huge

amounts of foreign exchange for the purchase of the MMRCA is

to acquire, absorb and indigenise as much of the high technology

that comes with the offset provisions of this landmark deal.

India simply cannot afford to throw away this once-

in-a-lifetime opportunity to stand on its own feet.

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months of the financial year 2012-13 for it to start receiving the aircraft in 2015-16 time frame.

In the present global financial sce-nario, the 126-aircraft deal may go much beyond the originally estimated cost of $10-12 billion (`50,000-`60,000 crore). Further, India may eventually decide to exercise the option of acquiring the ad-ditional 63 aircraft which could take the overall cost of the MMRCA programme to exceed the $20 billion mark (`1,00,000 crore). Given the current economic trends, this deal will always remain un-der the watchful eye of the Finance Min-istry but ad hoc cuts would be disastrous. India would have to stay its course if the acquisition of badly needed fighters at a price tag of about $100 million (`500 crore) a piece is to be accomplished. It may also be remem-bered that the MMRCA programme will extend well beyond the current decade and may go beyond the Thirteenth Five Year Plan period (2017-22) to fructify fully. Possible good news connected with the protracted programme could be that it would also spread out the expenditure making it easy for the government to absorb the financial burden. On the flip side though, it would prevent the IAF regaining its lost combat force levels, as quickly as possible.

However, having been drained to a record low level of combat squadrons, even with a full complement of 189 air-craft which will enable the IAF raise about 10 squadrons of MMRCA; it would find it difficult to fully regain its lost strength. Why? According to the IISS Military Balance as also other estimates, at the last count, there were around 290 MiG-21s still operating with the IAF. Of these, around 100 are of Bison variety which means that the IAF has no option but to replace at least 200 of the older fighters by 2017-18. The MiG-27 fleet would be the next in line for a phase out which means, close on the heels of the Bison version of the MiG-21 Bis aircraft, the MiG-27s may also head for retirement by the end of the Thirteenth Five Year Plan period—a staggering 400 aircraft over the next decade. The PAK-FA or T-50 fifth generation fighter known as the FGFA in India is also not ex-pected to start getting inducted into the IAF before 2020-22.

This clearly means that whatever India does in the next few years, it cannot hope to restore the IAF’s combat aircraft strength to anywhere near the authorised level. This also means that India would have no choice but to rely on beefing up its Su-30 resources and accelerate the LCA induction pro-cess to the extent possible. But it is rumoured that the Su-30 spares problems are also pretty serious. The IAF would then have no option but to woo Russian original equipment manu-facturers (OEMs) to provide sustained and reliable spares sup-port for the Su-30 fleet if it is to remain the mainstay of the IAF in the foreseeable future. If the Russian product support for the IAF’s Su-30 fleet improves to the desired levels, then the IAF could consider ordering more of these aircraft—al-ready under licensed-production at the HAL Nasik Facility—to fill up deficiencies in its combat force levels.

The LCA programme—already lagging behind enor-mously with the full operational clearance (FOC) predicted to

be achieved only in 2013-14—must remain on track, with the remain-ing weapon carriage and firing tri-als being completed expeditiously.

It is worth remembering that the ambitious LCA programme has so far fallen way short of the original plans to acquire indigenous capabilities in some key technologies, which are vital for the design and development of modern state-of-the-art combat jet fighters. Out of the five technolo-gies targeted, Indian designers were reasonably successful in only two areas, one, dealing with the develop-ment and manufacture of advanced carbon-fibre composites (CFC) struc-tures and skins and, two, the devel-opment of a modern ‘glass cockpit’.

In the field of fly-by-wire (FBW) flight control systems (FCS), success could be achieved only with heavy doses of foreign assistance. But in two most crucial set of technologies i.e. an afterburning turbojet engine and a multi-mode pulse Doppler radar, success has continued to elude the Indian scientists. ‘Kaveri’ project still in a state of limbo, it has been decided to power LCA Tejas Mk I with the General Electric GE F404-IN20 engines. Even the Mk II Tejas will be powered by the General Electric albeit it’s more powerful GE F414 engine. Similarly, with the indigenous multi-mode radar (MMR) programme still in its infancy, Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) has been roped in to integrate a hybrid version of its EL/M-2032 with Tejas.

This is where the MMRCA programme acquires great im-portance especially in view of the offset obligations amount-ing to a staggering 50 per cent of the total programme cost. An early decision by the Indian Government to ‘ink’ the deal is most important at this stage. Because, post the announce-ment, the next five to ten years would be crucial not only for the MMRCA programme and future aircraft induction into the IAF, but more so to the Indian aviation industry. The in-digenous aviation industry on its part will have to selectively choose technologies which are needed to help in its own on-going and futuristic programmes. Some key technologies con-nected with the LCA programme have been already discussed. In addition, if Tejas Mk II is planned to be equipped with active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, then this technol-ogy could also be factored in. Perhaps, the IAF—most affected service in the field of military aviation—could take the lead in identifying the key technologies which it feels would help the indigenous aviation industry to provide the weapon platforms and systems to maximise its operational capabilities.

The very reason for which India has opted to spend such huge amounts of foreign exchange for the purchase of the MMRCA is to acquire, absorb and indigenise as much of the high technology that comes with the offset provisions of this landmark deal. India simply cannot afford to throw away this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stand on its own feet. The consolidation and maturing of the local defence avia-tion industry, in fact, it’s very future, depends on the alacrity, wisdom and seriousness with which the decision-makers handle this major challenge. SP

— Air Marshal (Retd) V.K. Bhatia

In the present global financial scenario, the 126-aircraft deal may go much beyond the originally estimated cost of $10-12 billion


Civil regional aviationCivil regional aviation

a decAde AgO, The ASIAN aviation scenario was circumscribed to a handful of large inter-national carriers. Today, Asian markets are a trav-

ellers’ delight, with many a regional player vying with the traditional mar-ket dominators in providing business as well as pleasure trav-ellers a wide range of choice to select from. Perhaps the most exciting success story of all in this region is that of AirAsia. A former music industry executive, Tony Fernandes, bought a failing company in 2001 from the Malaysian Government for the token amount of one ringgit (26 US cents) and proceeded to bring it to a standard for which it was named the world’s best low-cost airline in 2009 and 2010 by the aviation consortium Skytrax. Fernandes started AirAsia with just two aircraft and one destination; and now the Kuala Lumpur-based carrier has close to a hundred aircraft and is a force to reckon with in the regional aviation market in Asia whose economic stridency—led by India and China—is a healthy portent of what the future holds for the regional aviation scene. Key forecast figures proj-

ect Asia as the region that would drive the global growth of aviation industry.

Traditionally, especially in Ameri-ca, regional airlines were considered as those which operate regional air-craft, that is, aircraft with seating ca-pacities of 99 or less passengers. This classification is perhaps still somewhat

applicable to the Indian “regional” aviation i.e. connectivity to non-metro cities and towns within India. However, this defi-nition is no longer tenable with aircraft of the A320/Boeing 737 class being used for regional air travel. These single isle (or narrow body) aircraft have seating capacities of 180-odd passengers and can do about four hour legs comfortably. AirA-sia differentiates between short haul (AirAsia, which flies legs of around four hours) and long haul (AirAsia-X, which flies longer duration flights). Incidentally, Commercial Aircraft Cor-poration of China (COMAC) is developing the C919 which will seat 150-160 passengers in a two-class layout or 180-190 in a single-class configuration, depending on customer specifica-tions. The first test flight is expected in 2014 and certification by 2016. The aircraft will be China’s first indigenous narrow

By group captain (Retd) A.K. Sachdev

travellers’ Delight

Key forecast figures project Asia as the region that would drive the global growth of aviation industry. Today, many a regional player are

vying with the traditional market dominators in providing business as well as pleasure travellers a wide range of choice to select from.

LONGER DURATION FLIGHTS: AirAsiA-X in flight

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body jet aircraft (not counting the smaller ARJ21 regional jet), and COMAC expects to sell 2,000 to 2,200 C919s over 20 years. The C919 is expected to compete with the Boeing 737 and Air-bus A320 in the regional aircraft market. China’s big three car-riers—Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines—are the possible launch customers for the planned C919 aircraft. Airbus holds about 43 per cent, and Boeing cur-rently has a 53 per cent share of China’s commercial jetliner market. As quaintly expressed by a report, ‘A’ of Airbus, and ‘B’ of Boeing will soon be joined by ‘C’ of Comac C919 in the “regional” skies over Asia.

There are three ways for a regional airline to do business. As a feeder airline, it could contract with a major airline, or, operate as a subsidiary, delivering passengers to the major airline’s hubs from surrounding communities. SilkAir is the regional wing of Singapore Airlines and operates scheduled passenger services from Singapore to 37 cities in the Asian region (mostly South East Asia, South Asia and China); and thus SilkAir is a “regional airline” subsidiary. Operating un-der its own brand, an airline could provide service to small and isolated communities, for whom that airline is the only reasonable link to a larger town. In this role, the term com-muter airline is generally used. As an independent airline larger than an air taxi or commuter airline service, it could operate scheduled services under its own brand; for example, AirAsia operates to 400 destinations in 25 countries in Asia with its main hub located at Kuala Lumpur. Some other small regional airlines are Berjaya Air, Jetstar (part of Qantas); Ti-ger Airways and Nok Air, chiefly owned by Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways respectively; and Firefly, a subsidiary of Malaysia Airlines. These regional airlines are a key transpor-

tation mode for the archipelagic South East Asia which in-cludes Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand and is spread over 24,000 islands across 5,200 km from east to west and 3,400 km from north to south.

The growing extent of Asian regional aviation led (in September last year) the International Civil Aviation Organ-isation’s (ICAO’s) Asia-Pacific planning group to approve the

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Low-Cost Carriers

Asia Pacific global Us Central/southAmerica

europe

Sources: Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, Deutsche Bank

17.6

23.4

28.629.9

35.3

Penetration rate, 2010 (%)

Boeing/airBus order BaCkLog By region and Country

% of global total % of Asian total

18%

25%

25%

32% 24%

20%

15%

9%

6%5%

15%6%

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northAmerica

middle east& other

Asia

China

india

malaysia

indonesia

Japan

hong kongsingapore

other

Sources: Ascend, Bernstein Analysis

Civil regional aviation


formation of a new team to work to-wards Seamless Asian Skies (SAS), so as to maximise the efficiency of civil aviation in the region. The new group has begun a two-year planning ex-ercise indentifying what needs to be

done to improve Asia-Pacific air traffic management (ATM) and will issue a final report in 2013. As most airlines con-tinue to suffer due to high fuel costs and economic uncer-tainties continue to render their profitability a grey area, any initiative to eliminate burdensome airspace regulations and allow traffic to flow as smoothly as technology permits, would be a welcome step. SAS appears to be a step in the right direction.

India has a huge tourism potential and ought to be a major gainer majorly from the prolific regional aviation in Asia. Besides leisure tourism and business, medical tour-ism is booming in Asia: Thailand, South Korea, Singapore and India are the top leaders in medical check-ups, fertil-ity treatments, joint replacements and cosmetic surgery by professionals, at a fraction of the cost in the US and Europe. However, the number of international airports is small in proportion to the total geographic extent of the country. On-going endeavours to improve airports and allied infrastruc-ture will indeed bring benefits, albeit the speed at which these initiatives are progressing could be faster. The recent demand by Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) for a substantial increase in fees proposed by the airport’s op-erator, Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) has raised heckles at home and abroad. As aptly put by Axel Hilgers, Lufthansa’s Director for South Asia, Lufthansa, “The pro-posed multi-fold increase of landing charges at IGIA airport is counterproductive, since India risks pricing itself out of the market for regional aviation hubs in Asia and the Middle East,” India’s Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) met all stakeholders in January to discuss the proposed 774 per cent hike in landing, parking, navigation and other charges sought by DIAL, beginning April 1. AERA proposed an increase of 334.6 per cent at the meeting. As could be expected, almost all representatives of international airlines (including British Airways, Air France-KLM and Lufthansa) opposed the increase, saying the time is not right for this steep increase. Alarmingly, Air Asia X, the long-haul arm of low-cost carrier Air Asia, has already discontinued flights from Delhi and Mumbai because of high airport fees. Air Asia has also dropped flights from Hyderabad for the same reason. Delhi airport is already one of the most expensive airports in Asia and the additional cost to airlines and pas-sengers is likely to adversely affect its traffic.

With nearly all airlines in India having met the DGCA criteria to fly internationally, their share of the regional avi-ation in Asia should have soared. However, they are strug-gling with cut-throat competition (which inhibits any fare raises), critical DGCA financial audits, very high aviation fuel costs within India, and across the board losses. A deci-sion to permit foreign airlines to invest in Indian ones, the Indian civil aviation sector would perhaps bring some relief especially to the beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines. Changes in the policy framework for civil aviation in India could hold the key for better exploitation of the potential of the Asian regional market. SP

THE HOmEGROwN cHINESE REGIONAL jETLINER: ComeC ArJ-21 tAkesoff

Air AstanaAir BaganAir ChinaAir DoAir IndiaAir India ExpressAir JapanAir KazakhstanAir KoryoAir MacauAir MandalayAir SeychellesAirAsiaAirAsia XAirblueAirPhil ExpressAll Nippon AirwaysAriana Afghan AirlinesArmaviaAsiana AirlinesAzerbaijan AirlinesBangkok AirwaysBatavia AirBerjaya AirBiman Bangladesh AirlinesCambodia Angkor AirCathay PacificCebu PacificChina AirlinesChina Eastern AirlinesChina Southern AirlinesChina United AirlinesCitilinkCR AirwaysDragonairDruk AirEastar JetEVA AirGaruda IndonesiaGoAirHainan AirlinesHebei AirlinesHong Kong AirlinesHong Kong Express AirwaysIbex AirlinesIndiGo Indonesia AirAsiaJapan Airlines

Jet AirwaysJetstar Asia AirwaysJuneyao AirlinesKam AirKingfisher AirlinesKorean AirLao AirlinesLion AirMalaysia AirlinesMandala AirlinesMandarin AirlinesMerpati AirlinesMIAT - Mongolian AirlinesMyanmar AirwaysNecon AirNok AirOne Two GoOrient Thai AirlinesPacific AirlinesPakistan International AirlinesPB AirPhilippine AirlinesRoyal Brunei AirlinesSafi AirwaysShandong AirlinesShanghai AirlinesShenzhen AirlinesSichuan AirlinesSilkAirSingapore AirlinesSkymark AirlinesSomon AirSpiceJetSpring AirlinesSriLankan AirlinesSriwijaya AirSurinam AirwaysThai AirAsiaThai AirwaysTianjin AirlinesTiger AirwaysTrans Maldivian AirwaysTransAsia AirwaysTurkmenistan AirlinesUzbekistan AirwaysValuairVietnam AirlinesXiamen Airlines

asian airLines

2000S Intro_210x267_GB_062011_VEC.indd 1 04/07/11 10:51

www.spsaviation.net18 SP’S AVIATION Issue 2 • 2012

Civil Business AviAtion

CONSIder ThIS—42 Per ceNT of the world’s popu-lation lives in Brazil, Rus-sia, India and China (BRIC) countries. Of the seven bil-lion population, China and

India account for 2.5 billion and one in three in the world market is either a Chinese or an Indian. That is a world of an opportunity as these population heavy-weights are now emerging as economic giants, on their way to eclipse the United States. These figures cut across sectors.

In the realm of business aviation too, this is the emerging scenario. Honeywell Aerospace in its 2011 report estimated that Asia, Middle East and Africa regions ranked the highest in purchase expectations regardless of the economic environment. Asian purchase plan rates rose about five points over 2010 lev-els in the survey, and at 45 per cent, lead all world regions. Even with the prospects of slower near term economic growth worldwide, operators in these regions expect to be active buy-ers. Asian operators have reported strong buying intentions for 2013. Planned purchases, if realised, will result in more rapid regional growth in Asia and the Middle East and Africa, than is

expected in North America, Europe or on a worldwide basis.

Whopping $230 billion Worth jets by 2021Honeywell has reported that be-tween now and 2021 business jets

totalling a whopping $230 billion (`11,50,000 crore) would be sold across various continents. That’s about 10,000 new business jets up in the sky, primarily driven by BRIC coun-tries and the Middle East. For the next five year period (about 5,000 business jets worldwide), the combined BRIC fleet re-placement and expansion purchase plans has been projected close to 50 per cent. Medium-to-large aircraft combined ac-count for around 35 per cent of the projected demand through 2016, up slightly from what it was a year ago. The next largest grouping is for long-range and ultra-long-range at 25 per cent. Light and light-medium aircraft make up to about 21 per cent. However, there exist bottlenecks in these regions concerning operator time restrictions, tax and regulatory compliance is-sues, etc. If these get sorted, the business jet market is going to further explode in the region.

By r. chandrakanth

AsiAn TigersWith humongous potential, given the population size, the frenetic

economic activity and the need to cover distances between business locations, Asia is transforming like no other region

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HAWKER 4000: hawker BeeChCraft

oPerates 35 airCraft in india



With humongous potential, giv-en the population size, the frenetic economic activity and the need to cover distances between business locations, Asia is transforming like no other region.

Chinese juggernautBy 2014, estimates are that Chi-na will have about quarter of the world’s 800 million new air travel-lers. Though China reportedly has over 200 private aircraft (as against over 11,000 in the United States), this is going to change dramatically over the next five to ten years as Chinese buy-ers are all over. The executive jet market is expected to ride the crest of the aviation growth wave.

It was only as late as 2008, the Chinese Government started giving attention to the business jets segment. The number of personalised business jets was 32 then, which jumped to 56 in 2010 and to 115 in 2011. This is expected to keep moving north.

after usa, maximum number of billionaires in ChinaIt is indeed amazing to know that in a communist set up, the number of billionaires is mushrooming by the day. As per Forbes, China has 115 billionaires, next only to the USA which has 413. The country is fast emerging as a major fi-nancial world power, expanding its industrial base and ex-ploiting its natural resources, all of which have helped it to create substantial wealth.

During the Asian Aerospace event last year, the Chinese mining tycoon Lian Guangming had said Reuters, “We’re all here. Some of us are ready to buy planes; some others are still searching and researching. But I can say that the spring of private flights in China has arrived.”

With the Chinese Government relaxing norms, the business aviation segment is expected to get a boost. The Senior Vice President of Gulfstream Aerospace Roger Perry said airspace and air traffic control regulations were being eased and that is a major move forward. China is aware about the needs of corporate travellers and has started providing quick over-flight

approvals, creating ground-based infra-structure, etc, which augurs well for the growth of the business aviation industry.

At the Asian Business Aviation, an integral part of Asian Aerospace 2011, the presence of almost all the business jet players reflected their strategies. “We met key people and marked greater ac-tivity over the 2009 event. It was worth-while bringing three aircraft here,” said Ted Farid, Senior Vice President, Inter-national Sales, Hawker Beechcraft.

Though currently China’s share in the business aviation market is miniscule, this is expected to change drastically and according to Rollie Vincent, President of Rolland Vincent and Associates, a market research, analysis and consulting firm, China is expected to eventually take 20 per cent of all business jets delivered in the world, up from about seven per cent today.

As per projections by Jason Liao, Chairman and CEO of China Business Aviation Group, the market for business jets in the country would be about $11 million (`55 crore) by 2018, thanks to the efforts of the government which has named general aviation as one of the country’s pillars of economic development in its 2011-15 plan.

In line with the projections, Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) has started exploring possibilities of co-devel-oping a business jet made in China in collaboration with some global players. The intent is there. And for plane makers it makes absolute sense to have China as a long-term strategy.

Reports from China indicate that it is already on course to build its own business jet. According to the China Daily newspaper, Beijing General Aviation Group and Beihang University signed a contract with four goals—building re-search and development capabilities; industrialising general aviation engines, avionics equipment and general aircraft; synchronising technology to world levels; and forming a complete industrial chain. They will invest about $15.7 mil-lion (`78.5 crore) in the venture. AVIC is said to be talking with Hawker Beechcraft; Cessna; Bombardier and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), as there is a caveat that original equipment manufacturers have to co-develop. The plan in-

looKing foR Robust gRoWtH: emBraer legaCy 650

EstAblisHEd plAyER: falCon 7x in flight

China, India and the Middle East will be ruling the skies in the not so distant future



deed is to build its own industry than just being a market.

ConneCting the CoastsThe kind of business jets that China will require will be dic-tated by the development of the Chinese expanse. If the east coast gets connected to the western border, then it would re-quire mid-size and super mid-size aircraft. At present, only a few cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen have routine maintenance service, though about 20 airports are said to be operational for business jets and it is anticipated that the numbers will swell.

“Bombardier is forecasting tremendous growth for China and Asia-Pacific over the next 20 years with industry-wide business jet deliveries forecast at approximately 3,350 units for the region, including 2,360 aircraft for China alone,” said Bob Horner, Senior Vice-President, Sales, Bombardier Busi-ness Aircraft. “The vast size and strategic importance of this territory warrants special attention in order to harness the full sales potential of our Learjet, Challenger and Global aircraft. To this end, we have strengthened the sales organisation, di-viding the territory into two distinct regions, China and Asia-Pacific/Australia, each represented by a Regional Vice-Presi-dent and reporting directly to a Vice-President,” he added.

india surgesThe growth story of India is similar to that of China, both de-spite their infrastructure and regulatory hindrances are try-ing to break new ground. A report published by the Firestone Management Group in 2011, showed India’s business jet fleet had climbed by nearly 50 per cent in the previous three years.

The Firestone founder and Managing Director, Justin Fire-stone has said, “As the world’s largest democracy, the second most populous country and one of the fastest growing major economies, this quantitative data indicates India is clearly em-bracing the need for safe and efficient business jet travel.”

Firestone said that Hawker Beechcraft topped the list with 35 jets, followed by Cessna 31, Bombardier 25, Dassault 17 and Gulfstream 15. “Embraer, Boeing and Airbus are yet to reach double digits with nine, three and two private jets respectively,” added Firestone. “Business aviation in India has been having a robust growth,” states Capt. Karan Singh, Managing Director of Business Aircraft Operators Association of India. “Despite the issues of taxation, ground infrastructure etc. the business avia-

tion segment has been growing and an average growth of 12.5 per cent is anticipated in the next few years.”

The number of business aircraft operators is on the rise and will continue to do so. “From the present fleet of about 600, India will triple to 1800 by 2020. The actual growth could be higher, if the issues facing the sector are resolved by the government.” Singh mentioned that “in 2006, the seg-ment grew 26 per cent and when duty of 26 per cent on import was levied, it came down to 10 per cent and 10 per cent is not good enough for a country like ours.”

John Rosanvallon, President and CEO of Dassault Falcon, has said, “Our vision for the Indian business aviation market over the long term—15 to 20 years—is very positive based on a number of fundamentals being put in place. India’s economy is growing at a very high rate, planting seeds for a fast rise in high net worth individuals and sustained profits for corpora-tions. As companies invest and expand, it is natural to find them using the most efficient and competitive way to trav-el—business jets. We have already seen significant business aviation activity in India and increased investment in the vital infrastructure necessary to support safe and reliable opera-tion of business. Dassault, for instance, already has two offices in the country, with technical representatives and marketing activities, authorised service centres and a spares depot.

‘It is important that the fledgling private aviation industry in India organise itself and so we warmly welcome the forma-tion of the Business Aircraft Operators Association (BAOA). The BAOA will be a strong advocate for further growth of the sector and will highlight the needs of its operators. It will help set high standards of safety, efficiency and professional-ism, through the close cooperation of all its members.

‘Another important factor is the support of the govern-ment through the modernisation of airports, and the easing of regulations to encourage business aviation and private aircraft ownership and operations. We can already see the positive impact of these activities in India. In the 1990s, there were only a handful of large cabin aircraft registered in the country. In 2010, India saw its largest rise in new aircraft reg-istrations. Dassault Falcon currently has more than a 60 per cent share of the market for premium large cabin/long haul business aircraft and we expect the fleet to double in the next few years. Falcon aircraft are especially valued in India for their performance and their efficiency. They offer economical operation and environmentally responsible performance.

‘A vibrant business aviation sector is vital for the de-velopment of India’s broader economy, to create access to more remote areas of the country in comfort and security. Dassault is playing its role with a long-term commitment to building our presence in the country, through new services and strong customer support. In a country which could of-fer the potential for 100 Falcon aircraft sales over the next 15 years, there is clear justification in our confidence and in committing the company to further expansion in India.”

Daniel Keady, Vice President, Sales, South Asia Pacific/India, Hawker Beechcraft has said, “Hawker and King Air have been operating in India for decades, so the operators can draw from an experienced pilot and engineer pool along with generally good availability of spares. Hawker Beechcraft Corporation (HBC) has been selling aircraft in India for over 60 years. India is and will continue to be integral to our inter-national strategy as a company.”

bombARdiER globAl 7000: foreCasting tremendous

growth for China



The Asian Wall Street Journal (AWSJ) recently reported that India now has 55 billionaires that control nearly $250 billion (`12,50,000 crore) in wealth. According to the AWSJ article, if you compare this with China, it has 115 billion-aires that control $230 billion (`11,50,000 crore) in wealth. So as a percentage of GDP, India would be higher. All of this points towards strong growing economies and this environ-ment generally fuels business aircraft sales.

India has had a long history with general aviation and with the recent rapid gains in personal wealth, desire for individu-als to better manage their time and the continued broader ac-ceptance of aircraft being a business tool, we only see upside for corporate aviation in India. As for the HBC products, both the Hawker and King Air range are a great fit for the Indian market as the King Air with its economical operating costs and great short field performance and the Hawker with its full seats full fuel capability, have proved their worth. Both products have been operating in India for decades. So the

operators can draw from an experienced pilot and engineer pool along with generally good availability of spares.”

The number of business jet operators in India is on the rise. As per the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), there were 133 non-scheduled operators, including helicop-ter and company aircraft. The growth of charter business was also on the rise. The leading charter operators in India include Religare Aviation; Deccan Charters; Taj Air, etc.

In 2011, the DGCA approved licenses for 10 general avia-tion operators. Among them, Air One is a prominent player. Alok Sharma, Air Sahara’s former President and CEO, said to be a close confidant of Sahara group Chairman Subrata Roy, has started Air One. Air One has inducted Citation XLS and has plans to induct in the next six to eight months – Lineage 1000; Dauphin AS 365 N2 and Eurocopter Ecuriel AS 355N. Both Chi-na and India depict the same growth picture, the same oppor-tunities, similar kind of hurdles, etc and they now realise how they need to open up their economies to propel further growth.

middle east business aviation riding the Crest WaveThe business aviation industry is relatively small when com-pared to the airline industry in the Middle East region, but it is an industry that is growing in its importance in the region. Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, Saudi Arabian Airlines, etc have stamped their global presence in quick time. Not to be left behind are several players in the general aviation seg-ment who have carved a niche for themselves, such as Royal Jet; Execujets, etc. The Middle East Business Aviation Associ-ation (MEBAA) has predicted that business aviation segment will represent 40 per cent of the total Middle East aviation market within four years The Founder Chairman of MEBAA, Ali Al Naqbi has said that MEBAA is determined to take busi-ness aviation further up the economic and political agenda in the region. “We are the industry forum that expresses the needs of operators responsible for approximately 450 busi-ness aircraft currently based in the region, with a consider-able fleet increase anticipated.”

“The business aviation market in the Middle East is now at a crucial stage in its further development, and is poised to reach $1 billion (`5,000 crore) by 2018,” said Naqbi.

“The business aviation market in the Middle East has matured to the extent that today, a business jet is viewed in the region as a powerful tool to enable quick and conve-nient access to customers, within the region and worldwide. They are recognised as a vital business asset by local en-trepreneurs, and larger regional companies,” declared John Rosanvallon, President and CEO of Dassault Falcon.

Shane O’hare, President and CEO, Royal Jet said that de-spite the challenges, the Middle East business aviation mar-ket has bucked the global trend and followed an upward curve over the past 12 months, driven in part by a growth in demand in the large VIP aircraft such as the Boeing business jet and the increased availability of super mid-sized aircraft.

The Middle East market is at the forefront of the global recovery. Fuelled by double-digit growth in Qatar, continued reconstruction in Iraq and positive percentage point growth in all markets, the region is thriving. One of the factors help-ing its growth is its strong links and geographic proximity to the emerging markets in China, the Far East and India.

All in all, China, India and the Middle East will be ruling the skies in the not so distant future. SP

business aviation sCenario

INdIANon-scheduled operators (including helicopters) 133Leading operators in IndiaReliance Infrastructure/Transport/Travels 15Deccan Charters (including helicopters) 14Religare Aviation (including helicopters) 11AR Airways 8Aircharter Services 7Taj Air 4There are many operators with one or more aircraft in the fleet

chINAAs per New York-based JetNet as of August 2011, there were 163 business jets in Mainland ChinaLeading General Aviation operatorsDeer Jet – 40 (including 19 managed)BAA 24TAG Aviation 20Metrojet 20Jet Aviation Asia 13Asiajet 9

In 2011, the directorate General of civil Aviation (dGcA) approved non-scheduled operators licences for 10 general aviation companies (including helicopter operators). They are:Air One Aviation 1Aviators India 2Bhaskar Exxoil 1Global Avianautics 1Invision Air 2Jyothi Aviation 1Rainbow Air 1Ventura 2Maritime Energy Heli Services 1Silver Jubilee Traveller 1


Military Strategy

ON JANuAry 23, BeIJINg literally exploded in a riot of colourful street danc-ers, joyfully marching with their ‘dragons’ collectively held high over their heads;

amidst cacophonous din of impressive fireworks, to mark the beginning of the Chinese lunar New Year. But while the street dragons generally bore joyously playful looks, to usher in 2012 as the ‘Year of the Dragon’; it is the Chinese symbolic ‘Dragon’ with a barely hidden menacing face and ever-increasing as-sertiveness, that is causing ripples of concerns among the global security fraternity. Worst affected are a large number of China’s neighbours in South-East and the Asia-Pacific re-gion—not to speak of India, with whom China continues to have a festering border dispute.

Flashback: In the November-December 1993 issue of For-eign Affairs, an article entitled ‘The Rise of China’ appeared, written by Nicholas D. Kristol, the former New York Times col-umnist. He said that China’s economy would surpass that of the US to become the world’s largest by the middle of the 21st century. He predicted that the growing economic clout would see China expanding its regional sphere of influence not only in economic terms but also in strategic/military terms, espe-cially if there was a power vacuum in the Asia-Pacific region. His observations have turned out close to being prophetic, given the emerging security scenario.

In fact, the process had started in the 1980s with China embarking on a revo-lutionary four-point modernisation pro-gramme under the dynamic leadership of Deng Xiaoping, which included beef-ing up its economy and military prow-ess. Three decades of single-minded and dedicated effort has brought about

metamorphic changes in China with its economy still gallop-ing at annual double-digit growth rate and its military power growing by leaps and bounds. This has also resulted in a major shift in China’s national security and military strategies.

Security analysts around the world often use the term ‘national security strategy’ or simply ‘security strategy’ in the context of the nation’s military concerns or military related issues. But ideally, National Security Strategy should refer to the development, application and coordination of all the ele-ments of national power such as political/diplomatic, econom-ic, informational, military, sociological/cultural, etc, to achieve a nation’s objectives in domestic and international affairs in peace as well as in war. Therefore, logically, it transpires that in pursuit of a nation’s objectives, multiple strategies such as an economic strategy, a political strategy, a diplomatic strategy, a social strategy et al—and of course a military strategy—must coexist. In the present global scenario, no other nation seems to have understood this point better than China, which has been resolutely and relentlessly pursuing its national objective to become a leading global power in not too distant a future.

By Air Marshal (retd) V.K. Bhatia

rise of ‘The Dragon’All ASEAN and Asia-Pacific rim countries are individually trying to improve the combat potential of their respective air forces to collectively meet the leapfrogging challenges of the Chinese aerospace power. India which also faces the gravest of security threats has done well by adopting a ‘Look East’ policy.

Chinese stealth: The J-20

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Military Strategy


China’s national military strategy seeks to achieve three sets of national military objectives; one, protect the party and safeguard stability; two, defend sovereignty and; three, defeat aggression, modernise the military and build the nation. As per a RAND assessment, Chinese military strategists seem to view the world as a place basically hostile to Beijing’s national inter-ests, especially China’s sovereignty. It is a world where dangers to national security lurk everywhere. The strategists view com-petition between nations for advantage as the norm and as a zero-sum equation. Change in the global and regional security environment is viewed as constant and usually dangerous. The absence of war does not mean the absence of hostility towards China. And, over the horizon, today’s much-needed trade part-ners can slowly transform into serious economic, political and military rivals. In other words, China perceives most of the rest of the world as inimical to its national interests. Second, while China’s military strategists place the utmost importance to protection of the ‘party’, their concerns about defending the nation’s sovereignty literally borders on being paranoiac.

Geography continues to be a critical factor for Chinese mili-tary planners. China shares land borders with 14 other nations and has border /territorial disputes with practically all of them. All told, the Chinese claim more than 20,000 kilometres of land boundaries and 18,000 kilometres of maritime boundaries in the Asia-Pacific region, which it considers being sacrosanct irrespective of the historical facts or the concerns/interests of other nations. While its land border disputes with India and other neighbours are well-known to be chronicled here, even in the maritime domain, China has staked large claims causing great apprehensions, disquiet and discomfiture among its mar-itime neighbours. For example, in the South China Sea (SCS), China has claimed a “U-shaped line” of demarcation for its EEZ and continental shelf for decades (see Map).

In 1992, China’s National People’s Congress passed the Law on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone. This law specified that the SCS and East China Sea (ECS) islands fell under China’s geographic scope as well as authorised the PLA to evict intruders, such other states’ naval vessels, from the territory. China has continued to reiterate its sovereign-

ty claims to the SCS and ECS islands, stressing that they are “indisputable.” Therefore, not only the Paracels and the Spartley islands in the SCS which are claimed by China, but even in the ECS, it has sovereignty issues over islands such as Senkaku islands with Japan—also claimed by Taiwan—which itself is claimed to be part and parcel of People’s Re-public of China (PRC). As a matter of fact, unification of Tai-wan with mainland China is considered to be a sacred duty of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of the PRC.

Although China’s military capabilities lag far behind those of the United States, but it is fast narrowing the technological gap. As stated earlier, China is in the midst of a major mili-tary buildup that is driven by the belief that the United States will be its primary detractor, not only in its quest to realise its territorial dreams but also in becoming a leading global power. Asia-Pacific nations such as Japan, South Korea, Tai-wan, etc continue to enjoy protection under the US nuclear/conventional security umbrella through respective bilateral/collective security pacts. But China’s growing military prow-ess, both in the nuclear and conventional military domains, has started to ring warning bells amongst these nations as to whether USA will be able to fight for them when faced with an actual military showdown with China. On its part, while US continues to be committed to its bilateral/collective secu-rity pacts in the region, especially in the nuclear arena, it is also urging the concerned nations to beef up their own con-ventional arsenals to help safeguard their national interests vis-à-vis an increasingly aggressive China.

While China’s military modernisation programmes are all-inclusive, it is the aerospace sector which has been given the greatest impetus. China has realised the importance of air dominance and aerial/missile precision strike capa-bilities as a prerequisite to achieving its national/military objectives. Consequently, it has with its own resources and Russian help continued to build and modernise PLAAF and PLAN with state-of-the-art combat aircraft and aircraft car-rier programmes to improve its aerospace and maritime air capabilities. With the acquisition of Su-27 and Su-30 aircraft from Russia and mass production of its indigenous J-11

UnClos: uniTed naTions ConvenTion on law of The seas

Military Strategy


fighter aircraft, China is moving ahead at a furious pace to modernise the PLAAF. In addition, China is churning out large number of J-10 and FC-1 (PAF JF-17 Thunder) aircraft to replace its older combat fighter fleets. Last year, China surprised the global military aviation fraternity by unveiling its indigenous J-20 fifth generation stealth aircraft. Shortly, the PLAAF would have a large combat force of more than 1,500 fourth and fifth generation aircraft on its inventory.

How are the US Pacific allies and the countries in the ASE-AN region responding to the enhanced Chinese aerial threats and security challenges? The US allies; Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, have traditionally depended on the US supplied airplanes such as the F-16 Fighting Falcons, F-15 Eagles and F-4 Phantoms, etc, to man their respective air forces and have comprehensive plans to modernise them. Japan has been so concerned by China’s rising air power and increased number of Chinese intrusions into its airspace that it had at one stage requested US for the supply of F-22 Raptor aircraft. However, having failed to get the Raptor because of a US Congress’ ban on its export, Japan has recently elected to buy 42 F-35 Light-ning II joint strike fighter (JSF) fifth generation stealth aircraft to counter the ever increasing threat from China. The selec-tion of the aircraft came about in an open competition which also involved the Boeing F-18 Super Hornet and Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft. The Japanese F-35 deal has also come as a much needed shot in the arm for the US Lockheed Martin, having won the first open-ended commercial contract for the JSF. The Chinese scare has also galvanised South Korea to induct the F-35 into its Air Force with the likely signing of the contract for up to 60 aircraft by October this year. Next in the line could be Taiwan which is also looking at buying additional aircraft from the US. Even Singapore which had recently opted for the latest F-15SG Strike Eagle aircraft has joined the F-35 programme for its future acquisitions.

Out of the Asia-Pacific countries facing China in the SCS region, which are mostly equipped with the US supplied jet fighters, two countries; namely, Japan and South Korea have pursued indigenous programmes of their own to develop fighter aircraft. Japan for example successfully developed the F-2 attack fighter. The programme involved technology transfer from the US with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) of Japan as the prime contractor and the Lockheed Martin as the principal US subcontractor. Beginning in 2005, these aircraft have been inducted in large numbers in the Japan Air Self Defence Force (JASDF) and have been also deployed overseas for joint exercises with the USAF.

Japan’s much smaller neighbour South Korea has come up with a much more sophisticated programme in the form of KF-X which is being developed by the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) in joint collaboration with Indonesian Aero-space. It is South Korea’s second fighter development pro-gramme following on the heels of the FA-50 programme. The KF-X is intended to be superior to the KF-16, which would replace South Korea’s aging F-4D/E Phantom II and F-5E/F Tiger II aircraft, with production numbers estimated to be over 250 aircraft. Compared to KF-16, the KF-X will have a 50 per cent greater combat radius, 34 per cent lon-ger airframe lifespan, better avionics including domestically produced AESA radar, and better electronic warfare, IRST, and data-link capabilities. South Korea possesses 63 per cent of the necessary technology to produce the KF-X, and is

therefore seeking cooperation from Indonesian Aerospace, Turkish Aerospace Industries, Saab, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin to develop the KF-X. The overall focus of the pro-gramme is to produce a fighter with higher capabilities than a KF-16 class fighter by 2020, which would also incorporate stealth keeping in view the North Korean/Chinese threat.

How are the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, which straddle the underbelly of China, re-equipping their air forces to provide a collective securi-ty umbrella in the South East Asian region? Out of the 10 ASEAN member nations, most had been equipped with US supplied aircraft and systems with the exception of Vietnam-ese Air Force which essentially has Russian jet fighters and AD systems on its inventory. Major air forces in the ASEAN group belong to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indone-sia, and of course, the comparatively new entrant, Vietnam. Most of these air forces have comprehensive programmes to modernise their respective fighter fleets. But instead of relying on only the US supplied platforms, combat aircraft of other global manufacturers are also being considered for acquisition in some cases.

Singapore, as stated earlier, stuck to the US in select-ing the F-15SG Strike Eagle aircraft from Boeing, orders for which continued to climb to 24 units as last reported. Singa-pore is also keen to acquire the Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter by 2015. But if the time frames do not match due to delays in the JSF programme, it may opt to acquire additional F-15SG aircraft to fill any voids in its operational capabilities. The Royal Thai Air Force on the other hand, equipped with F-16 Fighting Falcon older A/B models opted for the Swed-ish Gripen MMRCA, 12 of which have been ordered with six already inducted and the remaining to arrive by 2013. The Royal Malaysian Air Force which had been operating a mix of US Boeing F-18 Hornets and the Russian MiG-29s as its frontline fighters is inducting Su-30 MKM aircraft in its en-deavours towards modernisation. Vietnamese Air Force is heavily equipped with Russian fighters such as the older MiG-21 Bis and Su-22 aircraft. In addition, as a follow up to 15 Su-27 aircraft, it is acquiring 32 Su-30 Mk2V MRCAs to boost its operational capabilities. The Indonesian Air Force, while scouting for a new fighter has really diversified its search to include aircraft such as the Russian Su-35 Flanker, JAS-39 Gripen from Sweden and even the Pakistan-Chinese JF-17 Thunder. In a joint collaboration with South Korea, it is fund-ing the KF-X programme to acquire up to 50 aircraft in due course. Meanwhile, the Indonesian Air Force has reportedly received a small number of Su-27 and Su-30 aircraft as well.

To conclude, it is clear that all ASEAN and Asia-Pacific rim countries—big and small—are individually trying to improve the combat potential of their respective air forces to collec-tively meet the leapfrogging challenges of the Chinese aero-space power. India which also faces the gravest of security threats from its northern neighbour has done well by not only embarking on a series of programmes to modernise its fighter force but also by adopting a ‘Look East’ policy. Already part of the ASEAN Forum, India needs to build on its bi/multilateral dialogues with the South East Asian and Pacific rim countries, for the overall improvement of the security scenario in the Asia-Pacific region. An all-round positive and constructive en-gagement could ensure that the ‘Rise of the Dragon’ is made to remain peaceful at least in the foreseeable future. SP

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Military Air-to-Air Missiles

the eVOluTION Of AIr-TO-AIr missiles gener-ally followed the same pattern as the platforms on which these were car-ried; namely, the aerial

vehicles—mostly consisting of jet combat air superiority/multi-role fighters. Like the fighters which went through generational leaps in capabilities from first generation to present-day formidable fourth, fourth+ and the latest stealthy fifth-gen-eration fighters, the air-to-air missiles also went through generational accretions in their operational capabilities. The early first generation missiles such as the US Sidewind-ers and the Soviet K-13 (Atoll) had infrared seekers with a narrow (30 degree) field of view, which required the at-tacker to position himself behind the target aircraft in the

correct launch zone to have a chance of successful engagement. It was pos-sible for the target aircraft to ‘break lock’ (cause the missile to lose track of the target aircraft) by carrying out simple manoeuvring. But the seeker technologies continued to evolve and the present generation missiles in-

corporate deadly combinations such as all-aspect seekers with active/semi-active radar homing, beam riding, infra-red search and track (IRST), electro-optical, etc; mated to helmet-mounted sights and coupled with thrust-vectoring devices, with a view to continue to expand their ‘no escape zone’ capabilities.

Air-to-air missiles are broadly put in two groups. The first consists of missiles designed to engage opposing aircraft at ranges of less than approximately 20 miles (32 km), these

By Air Marshal (retd) V.K. Bhatia

What’s New aroundThe Chinese are known to be developing what is known as YJ-91 anti-radiation missile. India, on its part, has joined with Russia to develop their Novator K-100 missile much the same way as the other highly

successful joint BrahMos missile programme. With a range exceeding 200 km, it would provide a befitting reply to the Chinese challenge.

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are known as short-range or ‘within visual range’ missiles (SRAAMs or WVRAAMs) and are sometimes called ‘dogfight’ missiles because they emphasise agility rather than range. These usually use infrared guidance, and hence, are also called heat-seeking missiles. The second group consists of me-dium- or long-range missiles (MRAAMs or LRAAMs), which both fall under the category of ‘beyond visual range’ missiles (BVRAAMs). BVR missiles tend to rely upon some sort of radar guidance, of which there are many forms, modern ones also using inertial guidance and/or ‘mid-course updates’.

Even though both types of missiles are being developed by the leading nations/consortiums in the world, the advent of fifth-generation aircraft with inbuilt design features such as stealth, capability to super-cruise and long-range, highly capable active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars, it is the BVR designs which are being pursued more vigor-ously. The aim is to achieve ‘first-look’, ‘first-shoot’ and ‘first-kill’ capability i.e. to engage and destroy enemy aerial targets even before they sense the presence of own predator aircraft. There are little more than just a handful of nations/group of nations which are engaged in the art of developing the state-of-the-art BVR missile systems. These include France (MICA), Israel (Derby), People’s Republic of China (P-12 or SD-10) and South Africa (Darter). Russia which has generally been in the lead in air-to-air missile technology has a number of examples such as the R-27, R-33 and R-77 (also known as ‘AMRAAMski) because of its performance which is comparable to or better than the US AIM-120 advanced medium range air-to-air mis-sile (AMRAAM). A group of European nations which include Germany and the UK are developing the MBDA Meteor mis-sile. India has recently joined this elite group of nations with its own under development BVR missile, called the ‘Astra’.

A quick look at the two main adversarial air forces in In-dia’s neighbourhood would reveal a considerable increase in

the BVR air-to-air missile arsenals in both People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) or the Chinese Air Force and the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). China benefitted immensely when it imported Russia’s frontline fighters such as the Su-27s and later Su-30s in large numbers. Along with the platforms, the Chinese Air Force received a large but undisclosed number of BVRAMRAAMs from Russia such as the R-27 (AA-10 Alamo) and the R-77 (AA-12 Adder). And keeping up with its reputa-tion, China must have reverse-engineered them to come up with its own version of BVR missile. The Chinese latest BVR missile PL-12 (SD-10) —to be discussed in detail later—could fall into that category. The PAF on the other hand reaped handsome rewards by joining (selectively) with the US for its global war on terror (GWOT). It was able to sign a contract for 500 AIM-120C-5 AMRAAMs to arm its US supplied F-16 C/D Block 52+ fighters. In addition, it will surely be the recipient of the PL-12 Chinese missile to go with its fleet of—jointly produced with China—JF-17 Thunder jet fighters.

What has the IAF got in its arsenal of BVR air-to-air mis-siles to offset the formidable challenge from its two main adversaries? First, along with its MiG-29 air-superiority aircraft, the IAF had received R-27 missiles which fall in the category of medium-range BVR missiles in two ver-sions i.e. with IR heat seeking or semi-active radar hom-ing seeker heads. However, Su-30 MKI and the upgraded to Bison standard MiG-21 aircraft can carry state-of-the-art R-77 (also known as RVV-AE) active radar seeking missiles. Su-30s can also carry the R-27 extended range (ER) BVR missiles. The IAF is also likely to get the French MICA dual-use (BVR + close combat) missiles as part of the upgrade package for its Mirage 2000 deal, signed recently at a cost exceeding $2 billion (`10,000 crore).

As stated earlier, China and India are two countries in the region which are also embarked on developing their

own BVR air-to-air missiles—PL-12 by the Chinese and ‘Astra’ by India. These are discussed in more detail below.

China: PL-12 (SD-10)The PL-12 active-radar BVR air-to-air missile became the high-est priority air-to-air weapons programme for China’s military industry since 2002 in terms of effort and importance. It pro-vides the PLAAF with a sophisti-cated domestic airborne weapon on par with mainstream Western Air Forces around the world. The new PL-12 active guided air-launched anti-aircraft missile uses the radar and datalink from Russia’s very capable Vympel R-77 combined with a Chinese missile motor (another shin-ing example of Chinese capabil-ity to innovate/reverse engineer). Some sources claim the resulting combination has a greater range than the Russian missile, and a

AIR-to-AIR WeApons: An AIM-120 MIssIle beIng FItted on An

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fire-and-forget active guidance (from R-77) capability compa-rable to the modern US AIM-120 AMRAAM.

The PL-12 has four engagement modes. To take the greatest advantage of its maximum range, it will use a mix of command guidance (via a datalink) plus its own inertial guidance before entering the active radar terminal guid-ance phase. The missile can also be launched to a pre-se-lected point, using its strap-down inertial system, before switching on its own seeker for a terminal search. Over short ranges, the missile can be launched in a ‘fire-and-forget’ mode using its own active seeker from the outset. Finally, the PL-12 has a ‘home-on-jam’ mode that allows it to passively track and engage an emitting target, without ever using its own active radar or a radar from the launch aircraft. This capability is the foundation on which the ca-pability of anti-radiation missile is developed. The seeker is connected to a digital flight control system that uses signal processing techniques to track a target. The missile’s war-head is linked to a laser proximity fuse.

The PL-12 is claimed to have an operational ceiling of at least 21 km, with a maximum effective range of 70 km and a minimum engagement range of 1,000 m. The missile has a 38+ g manoeuvring limit. According to Chinese claims, PL-12 is more capable than the American AIM-120 A/B, but slightly inferior than the AIM-120C. The PL-12 can be de-ployed by the Chengdu J-10, Shenyang J-8F, Shenyang J-11 and JF-17 combat aircraft.

inDia: aStraIndia’s Astra missile programme is headed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The goal of this programme is to provide the Indian Air Force (IAF) with an indigenously-designed beyond visual range air-to-air mis-sile to equip the IAF’s Mirage 2000, MiG-29, Su-30MKI and the Tejas light combat aircraft (LCA).

The Astra missile uses a terminal active radar-seeker to find targets and a mid-course inertial guidance system with updates, to track targets. The on-board ECCM capabil-ity allows it to jam radar signals from an enemy surface-to-air battery, ensuring that the missile is not tracked or shot down. This indigenous missile is intended to have perfor-mance characteristics similar to the R-77 RVV-AE (AA-12), which currently forms part of the IAF’s missile armoury. The missile is 3.8 metres long and is said to have configured like a longer version of the Super 530D, narrower in front of the wings. Astra uses a HTPB solid-fuel propellant and a 15 kg high-explosive (HE) warhead, activated by a proxim-ity fuse. The missile has a maximum speed of Mach 4+ and a maximum altitude of 20 km. The missile can reportedly undertake 40 g turns close to sea level, when attacking a manoeuvring target. Although designed to use a locally-de-veloped solid fuel propellant, DRDO is also looking at rocket/ramjet propulsion to provide greater range and enhanced kinematic performance. It is claimed that the missile will have a max launch range in excess of 80 km.

aWaCS KiLLerSWith the proliferation of the AWACS in the region’s air forces, which are tremendous force-multipliers in modern air warfare, efforts are being made to develop long-range air-to-air missiles which enable the attack aircraft to launch these missiles also called, ‘AWACS Killers’, without risking themselves by having to get into the heavily protected air-space around these high-value assets of the adversary. The Chinese are known to be developing what is known as YJ-91 anti-radiation missile. India, on its part, has joined with Russia to develop their Novator K-100 missile much the same way as the other highly successful joint BrahMos mis-sile programme. With a range exceeding 200 km, it would provide a befitting reply to the Chinese challenge. SP

AIR-to-AIR WeApons: A Pl-12 (sd-10A) wIth JF-17 on dIsPlAy At FArnboroUgh AIr

show 2010


Space Debris

AfTer juST hAlf A cen-tury of spaceflight, there’s so much ‘junk’ up there that it is becoming a major hazard. When the United States launched

Vanguard I in 1958, its makers could scarcely have imagined that it would survive many decades. In fact it remains the oldest artificial item still in orbit around the earth. Out of the known popu-lation of 19,000 large objects and about 30,000 total objects ever launched, a little over 1,000 are operational satellites; the other surviving objects are, by definition, space debris.

Most objects orbiting the earth cannot remain circling forever. Slowed down by the outer fringe of the atmosphere they eventually burn up as they return to earth. A few larger objects may reach the ground practically intact and consti-

tute a potential risk to life and prop-erty. However, since space exploration began no one has ever been hurt by falling debris. In September, when the out-of-control bus-sized Upper Atmo-sphere Research Satellite was expect-ed to plunge back to earth it did create a bit of a scare. But NASA claimed that

the chances that a human being might be hit were just one in 3,200. Considering that earth’s population exceeds seven billion, the chances of a specific person “P” being hit were less than one in 21 trillion. In comparison, the chances of “P” being struck by lightning are as high as one in 60,000.

Kessler’s Killer syndromeOf far greater concern is the threat of damage to satellites. Several confirmed and suspected impact events have al-

By Group Captain (retd) joseph Noronha, Goa

MeSS OrbitWithout determined efforts on an international scale, it may be only a question of time before the most useful regions of space become too hazardous to operate in. The need of the

hour is to avoid creating any more space debris.

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Space Debris


ready taken place in space. According to a recent US study, the amount of debris orbiting the earth has reached “a tip-ping point” for collisions, which could in turn generate more debris. The vast majority of debris consists of small objects, one cm or less across, numbering perhaps tens of millions of separate fragments. Between one and 10 cm size, there are estimated to be over 5,00,000 items. What of the large items of junk? There are already 22,000 objects in orbit that are big enough (10 cm or more) to be tracked from the ground. They could cause severe damage to human-carrying spaceships and expensive satellites especially in low earth orbit (LEO).

A worrying possibility is that if the existing junk does not decay from orbit before impacting other objects, the number of debris items will continue to grow even if there are no further rocket launches. A one kg object, for example, at a closing ve-locity of 10 kmps (36,000 kmph), can be more destructive than the explosion of one kilogramme of TNT. Such a ‘hypervelocity impact’ can catastrophically break up a 1,000 kg spacecraft if it strikes a high-density portion. In the event of a breakup, nu-merous fragments larger than one kg would be created; these could, in turn, collide with other objects creating yet more de-bris. A single satellite failure, therefore, could lead to cascading failures of many satellites over a period of a few years, perhaps months—a possibility known as the Kessler Syndrome. If the Kessler Syndrome comes to pass, the threat to human space-flight missions may be too great to plan operations in LEO.

On April 2, 2011, for the fifth time in three years, the International Space Station (ISS) started its engines to dodge a piece of debris that was closing in rapidly and was feared to be on a collision path. Other spacecraft are also regularly forced to scurry out of the way of approaching rocket and satellite debris. Such action to evade large objects may need to be resorted to more frequently in future.

mitigation measuresHow is collision risk reduced? Space tracking, by organisa-tions like the US Space Surveillance Network, holds the key. Such networks maintain a database of all known rocket launches and keep the various components under constant surveillance. Computer programmes then predict possible collisions between large space debris objects and high-value spacecraft. When they detect the likelihood of such a colli-sion, the threatened spacecraft is manoeuvred (by small on-board rockets) out of harm’s way. However, such drills are expensive and can disturb delicate experiments. Besides not all satellites have the ability to manoeuvre.

Most detection systems like radar and lidar (optical detec-tion device) can only track space objects larger than about 10 cm, with typical masses of the order of one kg or more. But the damage due to smaller debris is rapidly becoming a significant threat. And there has always been the possibility of being hit by meteors and micrometeorites—leftover material from the formation of the solar system. Since the 1990s, chipping of sat-ellite windows and other surfaces has become all too common. Even a one-cm object can cause severe damage to a satellite, so collision avoidance will never be 100 per cent effective. Sta-tistically, it is more likely that spacecraft will be lost to things too small to track. The main way to avert this is to improve tracking techniques for potential spacecraft-killing objects.

The other main method is to provide a debris shield for enhanced protection. A spacecraft can be given enhanced

resistance to collisions simply by increasing the thickness of its walls. However, this also increases the mass of the satel-lite and makes it a lot more expensive to launch. Specially designed shields, known as Whipple shields, take advantage of the fact that two thin walls separated by a small space are more resistant to debris penetration than a single thick wall. The outer wall absorbs much of the debris impact energy and so the inner wall is not ruptured. This design is named after the astronomer Fred Whipple who came up with the idea in the 1950s. Whipple shields and modified versions of it are installed on the ISS. However, this method does not of-fer 100 per cent protection either.

destined for destructionThe Kessler Syndrome is not just an abstract event that might occur sometime in the future; it may already be happening. There’s enough debris currently in orbit to continually collide and create even more debris, raising the risk of multiple space-craft failures. As early as the 1980s, NASA and other US organ-isations attempted to limit the growth of space debris and their efforts met considerable success. However, not all nations were on board. On January 11, 2007, China conducted an anti-sat-ellite missile test and it became the largest single space debris incident in history. It is estimated to have created around 3,000 pieces of ‘trackable’ debris and millions of smaller pieces that may persist in orbit for decades. Another major debris disaster happened on February 10, 2009, when the deactivated 950 kg Kosmos 2,251 satellite and the operational 560 kg Iridium 33 satellite collided. Both were destroyed and the collision re-sulted in around 1,900 new orbiting debris items.

Space technologists have always taken pride in design-ing satellites to survive the tough launch phase and endure the harsh environment of space. They have been relatively unconcerned about what comes next. There’s growing need to design satellites so that on completing their useful life, the last action of the drama would be a controlled re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere to achieve their complete destruc-tion. One technique already tried is to attach an electro-dy-namic tether to the spacecraft on launch. At the end of its useful life, the tether is rolled out and slows down the space-craft till it de-orbits. Rocket booster stages might also in-clude a sail-like attachment that could later be unfurled and achieve the same result. However, none of the existing so-lutions is currently technologically mature or cost-effective.

Without determined efforts on an international scale, it may be only a question of time before the most useful regions of space become too hazardous to operate in. The need of the hour is to avoid creating any more space debris. Per-haps the most sensible proposal is to make it mandatory for launch vehicle operators to absorb the cost of debris miti-gation by giving them a “one-up/one-down” launch licence policy to earth orbits. In this system, operators would need to build the capability into their launch vehicle to rendezvous with, capture, and deorbit an existing abandoned satellite from approximately the same orbital plane it intends to oc-cupy. As for getting rid of the huge amounts of existing space debris, it might include strange methods like vacuuming up small items with cosmic nets, magnets or giant umbrellas—techniques that still belong to the domain of science fiction. Would governments and launch agencies be prepared to bear the considerable costs involved? SP


IntervIew OEM

SP’s Aviation (SP’s): Does Raytheon view India as an important market?William L. Blair (Blair): The term ‘market’ implies a strictly business arrangement. And with Raytheon in India, you have a relationship that extends well beyond a contract on a piece of paper. Raytheon has been in India for more than 60 years, and after that length of time, I think it’s safe to say we feel we’re a trusted partner to India. We’ve expanded our com-pany’s footprint in India by moving our operations to a new, larger office in Delhi and adding more people to the team. Additionally, in the past few years we’ve developed tie-ups with a variety of Indian entities, to include defence public sector undertakings and private companies. We are in the process of finalising a number of additional arrangements. So, the answer to your question is, Raytheon wants to build on and expand its relationships in India, and be the trusted partner of choice to both private industry and government.

SP’s: Can you give an example of what you had at the Singapore Air Show, which was of interest to Asia?Blair: Well, one example that comes to mind is our intelli-gence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) technology so-lutions. The capabilities we offer to our customers are very relevant to the broader Asian region and map directly to some of the pan regional challenges all our customers face. For example nearly 80 per cent of today’s global trade is trans-ported in ships’ hulls and securing maritime supply chains against disruption presents an enormous challenge for the globalised world. Over 60,000 vessels transit the Straits of Malacca every year with much of the cargo aimed at meeting critical energy needs of Asia-Pacific countries.

Raytheon is a world leader in addressing a wide range of littoral and deep ocean threats. The company’s maritime patrol aircraft capabilities provide an integrated solution for enhanced situational awareness and mission effectiveness that addresses a wide range of challenges customers cur-rently face. These include border security, maritime surveil-lance, disaster relief, environmental monitoring and mul-tiple military applications.

Empowered with exportable signals intelligence and unique tactical maritime technology, Raytheon’s maritime patrol aircraft capabilities are designed to meet the needs of civil and military customers in the Asia-Pacific region.

Our maritime-based reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition capabilities, versatile exportable sensor of-ferings and multi-INT integration expertise for multiple plat-forms enable us to create the right solutions for mission needs while providing a clear path for future upgrades as needed.

SP’s: What were the other technologies you showcased at Singapore that were of interest to India?Blair: I talked about our air-launched weapons portfolio of course, but we also had a suite of land combat weapons, such as the Javelin weapon system and man-portable Serpent launcher. We also had details on Excalibur there, as well as a range of sensors that focus on our maritime and littoral sur-veillance solutions. Additionally, we have a number of other ca-pabilities for international customers from the most advanced electro-optical/infrared sensors to cutting edge radar surveil-lance technologies. Surveillance and sensor capabilities for In-dia include the AAS-44C (V) multi-spectral targeting systems for use on MH-60R and MH-60S helicopters and the APY-10 and SeaVue XMC surveillance radars. Onboard the MH-60R helicopter, our airborne low frequency Sonar and MK 54 light-weight torpedo provide the sensor and weapon for an anti-submarine warfare mission. The MK54 is also deployable from the P8 Poseidon aircraft.

The SeaVue radar family is known for its proven ability to detect small maritime vessels in high sea states. It has been acknowledged for detecting stealthy self-propelled semi-sub-mersible crafts that pose a significant threat to the US home-land security. At Raytheon, we’re ready to bring this capability to India where maritime and coastal surveillance are of para-mount importance. This versatile airborne surveillance radar can also be used for commercial and military applications, in-cluding customs drug enforcement, border surveillance, exclu-sive economic zone (EEZ) monitoring, illegal traffic monitor-ing, and oil spill detection. SP

We feel we’re atrusted partner to IndiaIn an interview with SP’s Aviation, William L. Blair, President of Raytheon India, said that Raytheon wants to build on and expand its relationships in India, and be a partner to both private industry and government. Excerpts of the interview:


InDUSTRY OEM

INdIA IS The cOrNerSTONe of Rolls-Royce global de-fence business,” said Nick Durham, President, Custom-er Business, UK and International Defence, Rolls-Royce, addressing a press conference in New Delhi recently.

Adding that the company is now looking at how it would provide its customers more value for money.

Durham highlighted India’s role in the globalisation of the Rolls-Royce defence business, and spoke about the benefits of partnered support in the context of Rolls-Royce services strat-egy. He spoke at length about the company’s availability con-tracting for UK Ministry of Defence and how the company man-aged to help the government save costs by 50 per cent through its ‘Rocet’ and ‘PSOP’ maintenance support programmes for the RAF’s Tornado and Eurofighter fleets, respectively. Dur-ham spoke about Rolls-Royce support to UK’s tanker aircraft programme as well, which is more than 60-year-old now and how greatly the entire effort was appreciated by the UK MoD/RAF, especially on the successful conclusion of the Libyan air campaign. “The company is now looking at setting up service delivery centres to help our defence customers,” he said.

Though the officials chose not to comment on the Indian Air Force (IAF) medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) deal, they spoke highly about the EJ200 in the Eurofighter Typhoon with the Royal Air Force (RAF). The company of-ficials said that it has proven itself in the Libyan war, which, initially planned for 30 days actually lasted for eight months with tremendous increase in the flying effort. “The EJ200 met the high operational demands and surpassed 6,000 engine flying hours achieved over extended operational de-ployment with individual sorties lasting up to seven hours or more, without a single case of engine withdrawal”.

Replying to a question put by Jayant Baranwal, Editor-in-Chief, SP’s Aviation, whether Rolls-Royce will help India, if it goes to war, Durham said, “It is always our intent to find a way to support our customers.”

On the offset clause, the officials said that they have no issues with it. “Rolls-Royce has great personal relationship with India since the last eight decades, an easy relationship, constantly evolving. The Defence Procurement Procedure to-day is not what it was earlier, it’s changed,” said John Gay,

Director for Customer Business, South Asia, Rolls-Royce. Be-sides it’s more than 55-year-old partnership with the Hindu-stan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), the company utilises engi-neering service centres in Bangalore launched with Quest in 2005 and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in 2010, and has a MoU with Larsen & Toubro, signed in 2010 to address civil nuclear opportunities globally. The service centres with TCS and Quest have more than 700 engineers, being provided ex-pertise and skill development opportunities by Rolls-Royce.

On being asked to elaborate on the future collaborations with the IAF, the officials said, “We are discussing with them, explaining what we know and what we have. Nothing specific has been proposed.” Likewise, to a query raised by Jayant Baranwal as to what would the company prefer, the foreign military sales (FMS) or direct commercial sales (DCS) route, Durham said, “That’s not our business. It is the commercial arrangement that we have with the defence companies based on our capability and relationship.”

The officials also spoke about the MissionCare agree-ments in place with the IAF for the AE2100 and AE3007 engines installed on its C-130J and Embraer Legacy aircraft, respectively. He said that the company’s service solutions are now extending beyond propulsion system into engine capability provision and platform management. Speaking about the milestones achieved by the company in 2011, the officials spoke about their involvement in Eurofighter Ty-phoon, C-130J, C-27J, Global Hawks, etc.

On the Indo-Rolls Royce cooperation front, the latest milestone achievement was the groundbreaking ceremony last month in December 2011 for the construction of a new manufacturing facility in Bangalore to produce components for the Rolls-Royce Trent family of civil aero engines. The state-of-the-art facility is owned by the Inter-national Aero-space Manufacturing Private Limited (IAMPL), a joint ven-ture between Rolls-Royce and HAL formed in 2010. Sched-uled to start production in 2012-13, IAMPL will incorporate the latest Rolls-Royce manufacturing techniques and will be developed as a ‘Centre of Excellence’ with worldwide use of its products. SP

—Sucheta Das Mohapatra

India is the cornerstone of our defence businessAddressing a press conference, Nick Durham of Rolls-Royce, said that the company is now looking at how to provide its customers more value for money

Hall of Fame


EVEry fIEld Of humAN en-deavour has its share of re-cords, none more than avia-tion. The speed record—the highest air speed attained by

an aircraft of a specified class—holds a particular fascination in the popular imagination. The Fédération Aéronau-tique Internationale (FAI) awarded the first officially recognised air speed record to Alberto Santos-Dumont in November 1906, when he flew his 17-bis aircraft at 25.65 miles per hour (mph). Considering that the first controlled powered flight in history—by Wilbur Wright in the Wright Flyer in December 1903—was flown at about 6.82 mph, this was no mean achievement. The re-cord inched upward gradually till the 100 mph mark was crossed by Jules Vedrines who piloted a De-perdussin Monocoque at 100.18 mph in February 1912. All these records were set at sea level. How-ever, the advent of jet-powered aircraft triggered a new wave of record-breaking flights beginning with flying faster than the speed of sound (760 mph at sea level) and speed marks had now to be set at high altitude. For many years, na-tional technological prowess was measured by ever-higher speeds, and the pilots who flew the latest designs became famous. In Oc-tober 1955, the air speed record stood at 822.1 mph in the name of Colonel Horace Hanes of the USA, flying a North American F-100C Super Sabre. Then Peter Twiss de-cided to break it.

Lionel Peter Twiss was born in Lindfield, UK, on July 23, 1921. He was initially rejected as a pilot by the Fleet Air Arm. However, when the Second World War broke out in 1939, he was enlisted as a Naval Airman and learned to fly. He was assigned to fly Hawker Hurricanes and stationed on a merchant ship for its defence against long-range German aircraft. Take-off from the deck was performed with the help of a catapult. However, there was no way to get back—the pilot had either to try and return to the land or bail out close to the convoy and hope to be recovered.

In 1945, Twiss attended the Empire Test Pilots School. He joined Fairey Avi-ation as a test pilot in 1946 and flew

many of the company’s aircraft, includ-ing the Fairey Primer, Fairey Gannet, Fairey Firefly, and Fairey Rotodyne compound-helicopter. In 1954, he be-came Fairey Aviation’s Chief Test Pilot. He worked two years on the Fairey Del-ta 2 (FD2), a research plane produced in response to a specification from the UK Ministry of Supply for investigation

into flight and control at transonic and supersonic speeds. Its maiden flight, with Twiss in the cockpit, occurred on October 6, 1954. It was a mid-wing tailless delta monoplane, with a circu-lar cross-section fuselage and air-inlets blended into the wing roots. The en-gine was a Rolls-Royce Avon RA.5 with

an afterburner. The plane had a very long tapering nose which meant that the pilot would have to fly blind dur-ing take-off, landing and taxiing on the ground. To compensate, the nose sec-tion and cockpit drooped 10 degrees—establishing the pattern for Concorde’s famous nose droop years later.

Setting a speed record was no easy matter because the measuring de-vices were on the ground while the flight had to be at a high al-titude. It called for extreme skill and flying accuracy. After getting airborne, Twiss had to climb and accelerate to reach over a speci-fied point on the ground at a par-ticular speed and height where a huge telescopic camera would photograph the plane and start the timing process. Then, in per-fectly level flight, he had to keep his plane accurately on course to where the second camera waited. He was at 38,000 feet high (an altitude with optimum conditions for supersonic flight and which al-lowed the contrail of the FD2 to be clearly visible) and flying at over 1,000 mph along a measured nine mile course along the south coast of Britain. With the afterburner engaged, fuel consumption was very heavy and this limited the endurance severely. Reaching the maximum speed prematurely meant fuel might run out too ear-ly. However, attaining it too late might mean not flying the timing lap at the desired speed. Twiss made several attempts at the re-cord but on each of the flights at least one element in the complex chain needed to verify the feat failed. However, on March 10, 1956, he flew the FD2 at a new world air speed mark of 1,132 mph, an increase of some 300 mph over the record set in 1955. The FD2 became the first aircraft ever to exceed 1,000 mph in level flight and made Peter Twiss a na-tional hero overnight. He died on

August 31, 2011, at the age of 90. SP

—Group Captain (Retd) Joseph Noronha, Goa

Footnote: The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird cur-rently holds the official air speed record for a manned air-breathing jet aircraft, with a speed of 2,193.2 mph—a mark set on July 28, 1976.

Peter twiss (1921-2011)

He was initially rejected as a pilot by the Fleet Air Arm. He joined Fairey Aviation as a test pilot in 1946 and

flew many of the company’s aircraft, including the Fairey Primer, Fairey Gannet, Fairey Firefly, and Fairey Rotodyne

compound-helicopter. In 1954, he became Fairey

Aviation’s Chief Test Pilot.

newsDigest


BY SP’S SPecial correSPondent

delaYed deciSion on new aB initio trainer

By now, the Indian Government was expected to have cleared a deal for 75 basic trainer aircraft after it identified Swiss firm Pila-tus as the lowest bidder last year. However, fresh questions based on a rival protest are understood to have slowed the award, be-coming a cause of deep conster-nation within the IAF.

While MoD sources indicate that it is only a matter of time before the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) takes up the pro-posed deal and approves it, there are problems that the govern-ment is now forced to deal with.

In September 2011, Defence Minister A.K. Antony informed the Parliament that he expected the deal worth `2,900-crore (ap-proximately $596 million) to be concluded by March 2012. In November, the IAF Chief re-vealed that the Finance Ministry had cleared the deal, despite a significant budgetary overrun. On January 4 this year, it is understood that the deal came up before the CCS along with a contract for MICA missiles for the IAF's upgraded Mirage 2000 jets. However, while the latter was approved, the Pilatus deal remained hanging, presumably as a result of queries that have been raised. Pilatus has declined to comment on any requests for information it has received from the government, or if it has at all.

drdo UcaV Programme moVeS forwardIn a significant boost to India's classified unmanned combat aerial vehicle programme, titled autonomous unmanned research aircraft (AURA), the government is considering bestowing it with "major project" status. Sources in the Indian Air Force (IAF), the primary customer for the ambi-tious stealth unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), have been pushing for greater Ministry sup-port for a programme that is likely to be one of India's most

momentous in the future.With the Bangalore-based

Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) leading the ef-fort and a string of DRDO labs and academic institutions like IIT-Kanpur working on different elements of the proposed strike drone, the IAF is keen that the scientists deliver a state-of-the-art platform to augment the country's growing manned fleet.

ADA and DRDO have been in discussions with several coun-tries for possible technology tie-ups, though the IAF has insisted that the AURA's major compo-nents and systems be designed in-country. In an ideal situation, the AURA's materials, engine, on board electronics, software and sensors will be developed and built in-house. One of the chief development effort associ-ated with the AURA programme is the Dehradun-based Defence Electronics Application Labora-tory's (DEAL) effort to develop brand new secure datalinks that will allow the AURA to meld into existing and future net-centric infrastructure in service with the IAF and other two services.

drdo teStS mini droneS

The DRDO has conducted fresh tests of a slew of mini drones be-ing prepared for the armed forces and paramilitary forces as part of the National Programme on Mi-cro Air Vehicles (NP-MICAV). The Black Kite, Pushpak and Golden Hawk micro air vehicles (MAV) were tested outside Bangalore this week as part of a focused ef-fort to build advanced MAVs. In-tegrated with thermal, daylight or night vision optics, the MAVs are being built to be capable of au-tonomous flight at an altitude of at least one km, providing a real time downlink of video, still imag-ery and other data if required.

The three MAVs were dem-onstrated before the Integrated Defense Services (IDS) in May 2010, after which the Golden Hawk and Black Kite were se-

lected for user trials. Black Kite units with wingspans of 300mm and 430mm have already been test flown in remote-controlled and autonomous modes, show-casing its capability to fly au-tonomously and demonstrate loitering capabilities, crucial for surveillance. The big challenge now is to perfect a flight control system that makes possible fully autonomous flight in a cluttered urban environment.

Apart from the armed forces and paramilitary forces, a hand-ful of police forces like the Chan-digarh Police have shown inter-est in assessing the capabilities of MAVs for urban operations.

Hal ScoUtS for afcS for lUH

As its three-tonne light utility he-licopter (LUH) takes shape, the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has invited bids from glob-al suppliers to design and supply the automatic flight control sys-tem (AFCS). HAL has called for the development of a three-axis simplex digital AFCS that is in-terfaced with helicopter sensors and stability, controllability and autopilot actuators.

HAL is working hard to meet timelines, considering that it is working to meet an order of 187 units (126 for the Army and 61 for the IAF). Following the first pub-lic display of the LUH mock-up in January 2011, HAL is currently in the process of selecting a turbo-shaft engine for the platform.

In September last year, it opened two bids for Turbome-ca's Shakti engine (which pow-ers the ALH Dhruv and light combat helicopter prototypes) and the LHTEC (Rolls-Royce and Honeywell joint venture) T800. In a break from tradition (and its existing agreement with Is-rael on the Dhruv programme), HAL has asked for indigenously developed designs for the LUH glass cockpit, in an effort to offset the foreign component percentage contributed by the engine and flight control system.

Hal ScoUtS Partner for dornier do-228

HAL plans to offer its customers a cockpit upgrade for in-service licence built Dornier Do-228 and has floated a tender to select a co-development/co-production partner for the Do-228 glass cockpit upgrade programme.

HAL's Transport Aircraft Di-vision (TAD) has laid down that the Do-228's new glass cockpit should comprise primary flight displays, engine indication and crew alert system (EICAS), in-tegrated standby instrument system (ISIS) and flight man-agement system (FMS). HAL requires interested bidders to retrofit one HAL-built Do-228 specimen with a digital cockpit as a display model.

HAL lists the responsibilities of potential technology partners to include participation in the project definition phase (PDP), integration of the cockpit systems with the aircraft's digital auto-pilot (forward fit) and several other areas spread across three phases. About 100 Do-228s with conventional analogue cockpits are currently in service with the IAF, Navy and Coast Guard, and HAL assesses a requirement to upgrade them over seven years.

HAL also anticipates that the Do-228 will be under li-cence production for at least the next five-ten years. Beyond the aircraft already in service, HAL also wants to begin offering new Do-228s with a new digital au-topilot to replace the existing KFC-250 Flight Director/Auto-pilot system on an immediate basis, and has floated a request for proposal (RFP) to meet this requirement as well. HAL has revealed that it already has or-ders for six aircraft fitted with the proposed digital autopilot and glass cockpit. •For complete versions log on to: www.spsaviation.net & www.spsmai.com

newsDigest


militarYAsia-Pacific

IAF Chief visits MalaysiaAir Chief Marshal N.A.K. Browne, Chief of the Air Staff, Indian Air Force (CAS, IAF) was recently on a four-day official visit to Malaysia from January 30 to February 4, 2012. During his stay at Kaula Lumpur, he met the Malaysian Chief of Defence Force General Tan Sri Dato Sri Zulkifeli bin Mohd Zin and Chief of Royal Malaysian Air Force, General Tan Sri Dato Sri Rodzali bin Daud and discussed a wide range of bilateral issues on defence co-operation. It may be recalled that a team of IAF pilots and technicians was sent to Malaysia in 2008 for a period of two years to train the Ma-laysian pilots, weapon system operators and maintenance staff for the smooth induc-tion and operation of their newly acquired Su-30 MKM fighter aircraft. They also helped them set up a Systems School for the Su-30 MKM at Gong Kedak Air Base. Dur-ing his just concluded visit, the Indian Air Chief visited Gong Kedak and Subang Airbases and held talks on issues including professional exchanges, Su-30 training, courses, maintenance and logistic issues.

Lakshya-II PTA proves IT mettleFlying at sea skimming height of about 15 metres at DRDO’s test range near Balasore, Lakshya-II the advanced ver-sion of DRDO’s pilotless target aircraft (PTA) has demon-strated its full capability. In a flight lasting over 30 minutes, it was made to dive down from an altitude of around 800 m to just 12 m and main-tained the required altitude for the specified time before demonstrating auto climb-out. The entire flight was pre-programmed and was totally successful. It demonstrated various technologies and sub-systems including auto soft-ware correction to prevent loss of mission, engaging and flying in way point naviga-tion mode while carrying two tow targets, etc. This was the

10th flight of Lakshya-II PTA and this was the first time that these capabilities were demonstrated.

A-29 Super Tucano for the Afghan Air Force

The US Air Force has ap-proved a contract worth more than $350 million that will provide the Afghan Air Force with at least 20 A-29 Super Tucano light air sup-port aircraft, ground training devices and all associated maintenance and support equipment originally slated to arrive mid-to-late 2013. According to Brigadier General Tim Ray, the NATO Air Training Command-Afghanistan commander, the Tucano was "tailor made" for the Afghan's counterinsur-gency mission and provides a cost-effective, easy to sustain platform. The light air sup-port's addition marks the final major complement to the Afghan Air Force's inven-tory of more than 100 varied aircraft and sets the stage for future growth. A coalition of 37 contributing nations are charged with assisting the Government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in generating a capable and sustainable Afghan National Security Force ready to take lead for their country's secu-rity by 2014.

Americas

US Marine Corps’ first two F-35s delivered

The first two Lockheed Mar-tin production model F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing

(STOVL) aircraft have been delivered to the US Marine Corps. The two jets are now assigned to the second Ma-rine Aircraft Wing's Marine Fighter/Attack Training Squadron 501 residing with the host 33d Fighter Wing at Eglin AFB, Florida. Both fifth generation fighters will be used for pilot and maintainer training at the new F-35 In-tegrated Training Centre. The two F-35B, BF-6 and BF-8 are the first two F-35 deliver-ies to the Department of Defense in 2012 and the sev-enth and eighth F-35 aircraft delivered to Eglin AFB since July 2011. Previously, the base had received six F-35A conventional take-off and landing aircraft for induction into the USAF.

Lockheed Martin receives contract for PAC-3 missiles

Lockheed Martin received contracts totalling $921 million from the US Army Aviation and Missile Com-mand for hardware and services associated with the combat-proven Patriot Ad-vanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) Missile Segment programme. The contract includes fiscal year 2012 (FY12) missile and command launch system production for the US Army and a follow-on sale of the PAC-3 missile segment to Taiwan. In 2009, Taiwan be-came the fifth international customer for the PAC-3 mis-sile segment.

Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor on the PAC-3 missile segment upgrade to the Patriot air defence system. The PAC-3 missile segment upgrade consists of the PAC-3 missile, a highly agile hit-to-kill interceptor, the PAC-3 missile canisters (each of which hold four PAC-3 missiles, with four canisters per launcher), a fire solution computer and an enhanced launcher electron-

AgustAWestlAnd

• PZL-Swidnik, an AgustaWestland company, has announced that it has signed contracts with the Polish Ministry of National Defence valued at approximately €90 million ($118.3 million) for the supply of five W-3WA Sokół helicopters and the upgradation of 14 helicopters. The manufacture and upgrading activities will be undertaken at the PZL-Swidnik factory in Poland. The five new W-3WA Sokół helicopters will be configured for VIP transport and used by the Polish Air Force to provide transport services for senior military and government personnel.

AleniA

• Alenia Aermacchi has delivered the fuselage to the ATR consortium, to be assembled in Toulouse to build the 1,000th aircraft. The ceremony was attended by the company’s top management and the employees who have been engaged in the ATR programme for many years.

AustrAliA

• Boeing subsidiary Boeing Defence Australia and Thales Australia have named the Eurocopter EC135 as the preferred platform for their bid on the Australian Defence Force Project AIR 9000 Phase 7 – Helicopter Aircrew Training System. A fleet of more than 1,000 EC135 aircraft worldwide has amassed 2.2 million flight hours till date. The helicopter is part of suc-cessful training systems in Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Japan, and in Australia with the Victorian and New South Wales police forces.

AviAncAtAcA

• AviancaTaca, which includes subsidiary AeroGal of Ecuador, has signed a purchase agreement for 33 eco-efficient A320neo and 18 A320 Family aircraft. The order, which is the largest from a single airline in the region in terms of number of aircraft, follows a MoU signed during the Le Bourget Air Show in Paris in June 2011.

BAe systems

• In a collaborative arrangement with the South Australian Govern-ment and Rosebank Engineering, BAE Systems has announced that

QuickRoundUp

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ics system and launcher support hardware.

Lockheed Martin delivers 2,400th C-130 HerculesOn January 30, Lockheed Martin’s C-130 Hercules programme reached yet an-other historic milestone with the delivery of its 2,400th aircraft. The aircraft is an MC-130J Combat Shadow II assigned to US Air Force Special Operations Command and will be operated by the 27th Special Operations Wing at Cannon Air Force Base. The delivery of this aircraft follows a record year for C-130J production at the

company’s facility in Marietta. In 2011, 33 C-130J Super Hercules were delivered a new production record for the C-130J model. The air-craft were delivered in six dif-ferent configurations for six operators: the US Air Force Air Mobility Command, US Air Force Special Operations Command, US Marine Corps, Canada, India and Qatar.

Europe

Dassault makes Swiss new offerIt has been reported that the French aircraft maker Dassault has made a new

offer to Switzerland for its Rafale fighter jets after the government decided in November 2011 to buy Sweden's Gripen planes. Dassault has sent a letter to Swiss parliament (which has yet to approve the Novem-ber decision) offering 18 Rafale planes for 2.7 billion Swiss francs (€2.24 billion, $2.96 billion), reported Le Matin Dimanche, which said it had seen the letter. In November, Dassault lost out on a bid to replace Switzer-land's ageing F5 fighter fleet when the Federal Council opted instead to buy 22 Saab Gripen fighter planes for an estimated 3.1 billion Swiss francs. But the Parliament still has to approve the deci-sion. The Swiss Government had earlier considered Ra-fales, Gripens and Eurofight-ers for replacing its ageing fighter fleet.

Hungary extends Gripen contract

Hungary is taking a long-term strategic decision to continue operating Gripen and ensur-ing the continued develop-ment of its national capabil-ity. Sweden and Hungary are extending the cooperation for another 10 years, until 2026. The partnership is a contract between two governments, where Saab acts as a sub-contractor.

In 2001, the Swedish and Hungarian Governments entered into a lease-purchase agreement, with a further modification in 2003 that included 14 Gripen C/D (12 single-seat and two twin-seat aircraft). All aircraft were delivered in 2006 and 2007, and all 14 aircraft were in operation with the Hungarian Air Force by the end of 2008. The current contract was due to expire in 2016, but the countries have now decided to extend the partnership by another 10 years.

Australia’s biggest advanced aero-space components manufacturing and treatment operation will be built in South Australia. The new facilities will make some of the world’s most advanced aerospace components in two facilities run by BAE Systems and Rosebank Engineering. The BAE Systems facility will specialise in machining parts and the Rosebank Engineering facility will provide specialised treatment and metal finishing services.

Boeing

• The Boeing Company has been awarded a $687.5 mil-lion modification to a previously awarded fixed-price-incentive-fee multi-year procurement contract for 14 additional fiscal 2012, Lot 36, F/A-18E aircraft and one additional fiscal 2012, Lot 36, F/A-18F aircraft contained in the F/A-18 multi-year III production contract. Work is expected to be completed in October 2014.

BrAzil

• Brazil is speeding its research and development programmes to perfect a tactical transport aircraft to rival the C-130 Hercules amid predictions that the global market needs no less than 700 substitutes. The Brazilian aviation research and development teams and manufacturer Embraer is trying towards early completion on a prototype that will be competitive in price, fuel-efficient and equipped with multi-role attributes of the old US workhorse Hercules and its modern successor, Lockheed Martin C-130J.

eurocopter

• Eurocopter’s EC 135 fleet with the German Federal Police has reached the 1,00,000 total flight hour mark. The fleet performs thousands of operations annually across Germany for law enforcement, home security and helicopter emergency medical services missions.

insitu

• Insitu, Inc. has been awarded a $21 million modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract to exercise an option for operational and maintenance services in support of the ScanEagle unmanned aerial systems. These services will provide electro-optical/

QuickRoundUp EADSEADS has announced that its Board of Directors has des-ignated Tom Enders to take over as the CEO when Louis Gallois steps down at the end of his mandate. Concurrently, Arnaud Lagardère will assume the role of Chairman of the Board currently held by Bodo Uebber. The change over will take place after the company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) on May 31, 2012. The Board has also announced fur-ther evolutions of the management team effective from June 1, 2012 including:

• Fabrice Brégier will succeed Tom Enders and become CEO of Airbus, EADS' largest division, and Günter Butschek, cur-rently Head of Operations of Airbus will be affected to the position of COO of Airbus.

• Harald Wilhelm will become Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of EADS, alongside his present role as CFO of Airbus.

• Marwan Lahoud will be reappointed as Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer (CSMO).

• Thierry Baril will assume the role of Head of Human Resourc-es (HR) for EADS.

EADS North America Chief Executive Officer Sean O’Keefe has been appointed Chairman of the company’s Board of Directors, replacing Ralph D. Crosby, Jr., who has retired.

LOCkHEED MArTINLockheed Martin has announced that its Board of Directors has approved the appointment of Larry A. Lawson to serve as the Executive Vice President of the Aeronautics business area. The appointment follows the announcement of Ralph D. Heath’s retirement; the transition is effective April 1, 2012.

FINMECCANICA Finmeccanica has announced that the Board of Directors of its US subsidiary DRS Technologies has appointed William J. Lynn III as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. The appointment is effective immediately. Lynn replaces current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark S. Newman who is retiring.

BAE SySTEMSBAE Systems has announced the appointment of Dean McCu-miskey as Managing Director and Chief Executive of its India operations with effect from March 2012. Dean is currently Group Chief Information Officer based in the company’s London headquarters.

aPPointmentS

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ciVil aViationAsia-Pacific

royal Jet expands Medevac capabilityRoyal Jet, the international luxury flight services compa-

ny chaired by Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan and the very first company in the Middle East to have been granted a commercial licence to provide medical evacuation (Medevac) services, has fur-ther enhanced its capability to meet the steady growth and demand for Medevac services.

Having performed over 1,310 missions, Royal Jet continues to be the most successful Medevac opera-tor with strong year-on-year growth and has the largest number of patient transfers. All of Royal Jet’s air ambu-lances are equipped with the most advanced onboard medical equipment and tech-nologies and are manned and operated by specially-trained and experienced in-house medical teams. Royal Jet’s Medevac missions provide bed-to-bed service starting from any medical facility where a patient may be com-ing from to the next medical facility or hospital that the patient is destined to go to.

AS365 N3 Dauphin simulator certified to Level DThe Helicopter Academy to Train by Simulation of Flying (HATSOFF), the joint venture owned equally by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and CAE, has announced that its simulator cockpit for the Eurocopter AS365 N3 Dauphin helicopter has been certified to Level D, the highest qualification for flight simulators, by India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) as well as the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). HATSOFF also announced that its three simulator cockpits—a Bell 412, a HAL civil/conventional Dhruv, and the Eurocopter AS365 N3 Dauphin—have been certified as Level 2 (JAR)/Level 6 (FAA) flight training devices (FTDs) when used as fixed-base, non-mo-tion simulators in the docking station installed at HATSOFF.

HATSOFF uses a CAE-built full-mission simulator “moth-ership” that features CAE's revolutionary roll-on/roll-off cockpit design, which enables cockpits representing various helicopter types to be used in the full-mission simulator.

When one cockpit is in the full-motion, full-mission simu-lator, another cockpit can be connected to the fixed-based docking station and used as a flight training device.

indUStrYAmericas

record year for world's most powerful jet engineThe GE90 engine experienced its most successful year in 2011, accumulating airline and freighter operator com-mitments for 400 engines with a list price of more than $11 billion. This surpasses the previous record of 250 engine commitments in 2007.

The production rate for the GE90 is growing, with plans to produce more than 180 GE90 engines in 2012 up from 170 engines in 2011. The production rate is expect-ed to climb to 225 engines in 2014. The GE90 story centres on an extraordinary faith in technology. Launched on the 777, the GE90 featured several technology "firsts"—including carbon-fibre com-posite fan blades. The engine has continued its stellar performance with an in-flight shutdown rate (IFSD) of 0.001, which means only one engine IFSD per one million engine flight-hours.

In addition to an un-rivalled thrust rating of 1,15,000 pounds, the GE90-115B offers the enhanced performance and efficiency of three-dimensional, aerody-namic (3D aero) compres-sor airfoils and wide-chord, swept composite fan blades. The GE90-115B performance and efficiency, coupled with the GE90-115B dual annular combustor technology, signifi-cantly limits fuel consumption and restricts hydrocarbon emissions to 40 per cent of the level permitted by current international standards.

Europe

Thales and Aerovisión present Frontex with UAVThales and Aerovisión have given a real flight demonstra-tion of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Fulmar for the

SHow calendar6–8 MarchABU DHABI AIr ExPOAl Bateen Executive Airport, Abu Dhabi, UAEwww.adairexpo.com

13–15 MarchUNMANNED AIrCrAFT SySTEMS CONFErENCEHoliday Inn on the Bay, San Diego, CA, USAwww.uaswest.com

14–18 MarchINDIA AVIATION 2012Begumpet Airport, Hyder-abad, Indiawww.india-aviation.in

26–27 MarchAIr POwEr MIDDLE EASTCrowne Plaza Hotel, Muscat, Omanwww.meairpower.com

27 March–1 AprilFIDAE INTErNATIONAL AIr & SPACE FAIrArturo Merino Benitez Air-port, Santiago, Chilewww.fidae.cl/portal_fidae.aspx

29 March–1 AprilDEFExPO INDIA 2012Pragati Maidan New Delhi, Indiawww.defexpoindia.in

4–7 AprilAErOExPO MOrOCCOMenara Marrakech Airport, Marrakech, Moroccowww.fr.aeroexpo-morocco.com/accueil_en.html

11–13 AprilSHANGHAI INTErNATIONAL BUSINESS AVIATION SHOwShanghai Dachang Airbase, Shanghai, Chinawww.shanghaiairshow.com/SIBAS

18–21 AprilAErO FrIEDrICHSHAFENMesse Friedrichshafen, Friedrichshafen, Germanywww.aero-expo.com

infrared and mid-wave infrared im-agery in support of US Marine Corps operations in Operation Enduring Freedom to provide real-time imagery and data.

mexico

• Mexican low-cost carrier Volaris has signed a purchase agreement for 44 eco-efficient Airbus A320 aircraft, comprising 30 A320neo and 14 A320 aircraft. The order represents the larg-est single commercial aircraft order ever by an airline in Mexico. Volaris is also the first airline in Mexico to order the A320neo and will announce its engine selections for the aircraft at a later date.

norWAy

• Norwegian Defence Minister Espen Barth Eide wants to try to coordinate Norway's purchase of the new F-35 fighter planes with other non-US nations which are interested in buying the aircraft. Barth Eide presented the idea as he was leaving the US Thursday evening, after he met Bob Stevens, the Chief of Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the F-35 fighter planes. The other countries interested in the F-35 are Great Britain, Canada, Turkey, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Norway has become the first European customer for the advanced Leap-1B-powered Boeing 737 MAX with an order for 100 airplanes. In addition, the airline ordered 22 additional CFM56-7BE-powered Next-Generation 737-800s. The total engine order is valued at approximately $2.9 billion at list price. Both the Leap-1B and CFM56-7BE engines are products of CFM International (CFM), a 50/50 joint venture between Snecma (Safran group) and GE.

russiA

• A modernised A-50U Mainstay airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft has entered service with the Russian Air Force. The AWACS has an advanced onboard com-puter, satellite communication, radar systems and has the capability to detect various types of flying targets, including helicopters, cruise missiles and supersonic aircraft. The A-50 can track up to 10 fighter aircraft for either air-to-air interception or air-to-ground attack missions.

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sAAB

• The defence and security company Saab has signed a major support agreement with Sikorsky Aerospace Services regarding technical main-tenance and support for Sweden's Black Hawk helicopters.

sikorsky

• Sikorsky Aircraft, a subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation, has selected Meggitt Polymer & Com-posites and Meggitt Safety Systems for the newly-formed team building a next-generation helicopter—known as the S-97 Raider—for evaluation by the US military. Meggitt’s failsafe technology will prevent aircraft fuel systems from rupturing from the impact of crashes or bullets, while its fire protection systems will deliver fully integrated detection and suppression. The Raider aircraft pro-gramme follows Sikorsky’s successful X2 Technology demonstrator aircraft, which in September 2010, achieved more than 250 knots flight speed, or twice the average cruise speed of a conventional helicopter.

soyuz

• The 1,785th flight of a Soyuz launch vehicle was carried out Janu-ary 26, 2012, from the Baikonur Cos-modrome in Kazakhstan. Arianespace and its Russian partners report that the progress cargo spacecraft was ac-curately placed on the target orbit for another mission to the international space station. This was the first Soyuz family mission in 2012. Arianespace is the world’s leading launch service and solutions company delivering innovative solutions to its customers since 1980.

strAtA muBAdAlA: ABu dhABi

• Strata Mubadala Aerospace's manufacturing unit has won an Airbus package worth more than $1 billion (Dh3.67bn) in its first 18 months. Strata, the advanced composite aircraft-structures maker in Al Ain, has won its first work pack-age on the new Airbus A350 XWB, to provide wing components called flap-track fairings. The Strata deal is part of Abu Dhabi's ambitions to become a major player in the lucrative aircraft manufacturing and maintenance industry.

QuickRoundUp European Agency Frontex, the organism in charge of co-ordinating the border control operations of the European Union member states. Fulmar is a wholly Spanish project that is a global solution that uses the Maritime Surveil-lance Systems of Thales-Group. These systems supply images and video in real time and integrate the information in a security system, as is the case with border con-trol. Such systems facilitate surveillance and control of maritime and border traffic and can provide inestimable support to rescue operations.

The UAV Fulmar is a small-size model (3.1 m) weighing only 19 kg that can fly at a height of 3,000 m and achieve 150 kmph, with an eight-hour flight range that would allow it to fly up to 800 km without having to refuel.

1,000th ATr fuselage completed in Pomigliano

On January 27, Alenia Aer-macchi delivered the fuselage to the ATR consortium, to be assembled in Toulouse to build the 1,000th aircraft. The ceremony was attended by the company’s top manage-ment and the employees who have been engaged in the ATR programme for many years.

With 1,000 fuselages and stabilisers built, over 1,190 orders, 970 aircraft deliv-ered, ATR is in the ‘Top Ten’ of the world ranking for the most successful commercial airplanes in civil aviation his-tory. Operated by 186 airlines in 90 countries, every 20 seconds an ATR takes off in the world. Over 800 million passengers have been flying with this aircraft since the programme started. In 2011 it won 157 orders and, with a backlog of 224 aircraft con-tinues to lead the segment of regional turboprop air trans-port up to 90 seats, with an 80 per cent market share.

Airbus marks 2011 with record order and delivery

Airbus delivered 534 commer-cial aircraft to 88 customers (10 new) and booked 1,419 net orders in 2011, making it the most successful year in the company’s history, and the 10th in a row with a production increase. The 534 deliveries beat the previ-ous record set in 2010 by 24 aircraft. Airbus Military also delivered a record number of 29 aircraft. Airbus had a record order intake of 1,608 (1,419 net) commercial air-craft, worth $169 billion gross ($140 billion net) at list prices. In value terms, Airbus’ share of total aircraft sales (above 100 seats) in 2011 is 56 per cent gross (54 per cent net). Despite the challenging mar-kets, Airbus Military won five new orders for its light and medium aircraft (CN235 and C295). Overall, the backlog is 4,437 aircraft valued at over $588 billion at list prices, or equalling seven-eight years of production. The military back-log stands at 222 aircraft, in-cluding 174 A400M, 22 A330 MRTT, 18 light and medium and eight P-3 conversions.

ATr sold 157 aircraft in 2011

Regional aircraft manufac-turer ATR has recorded its best commercial year in 2011, posting firm sales of 157 planes and options for an additional 79 aircraft. These 157 firm sales (13 ATR 42s and 144 ATR 72s) round out the manufacturer's order book for a record high of 224 aircraft, ensuring three years of production, taking into

account the production ramp up starting in 2012. During a press conference held in Paris, Filippo Bagnato, Chief Executive Officer of ATR, said, “Our success is based on our ability to answer to the market requirements. Airlines are increasingly looking for planes that combine the low-est operating costs, cutting-edge technology, comfort and environmental friendliness. In this context, ATRs and particularly our new series of aircraft, the 72-600s have proven to be the best choice for regional routes in terms of meeting these requirements.

SPaceAmericas

Boeing begins NASA solar electric propulsion studyThe Boeing Company has begun work on a four-month NASA contract to develop a mission concept study for solar electric propul-sion technologies. Under the $6,00,000 firm, fixed-price contract, Boeing will evalu-ate concepts that combine high-power solar arrays with advanced electric thrusters to power spacecraft and pay-loads to high earth orbit and deep space destinations.

Lockheed Martin and NASA place 2 Grail into orbitBoth of NASA’s Gravity Re-covery and Interior Labora-tory (GRAIL) spacecraft were successfully inserted into orbit around the earth’s moon. The missions will analyse the inter-nal structure and gravitational forces of the moon. Lockheed Martin built the twin robotic spacecraft and is conducting flight operations for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

In early March this year, the science phase of the mission will start. For nearly three months, the twin robotic spacecraft will map the gravitational field of the moon in unprecedented detail. This data will be used to determine the structure of the lunar interior from crust to core and advance human understanding of the thermal evolution of the moon and other terrestrial planets. •

LastWord


ON SATurdAy JANuAry 14, 2012, hundreds of passengers booked to travel by Air India were stranded at the airports across the country as a section of pilots went on a day-long strike throw-ing flight schedules out of gear. However, by the end of the day, near normalcy was restored as pi-

lots resumed work in response to assurance from the manage-ment that their grievances would be addressed without delay.

Strikes in Air India are triggered often for even trivial rea-sons. Nearly a year ago, 700 pilots of the Indian Commer-cial Pilots Association (ICPA), the derecognised union of erst-while Indian Airlines, went on a strike over issues of parity in emoluments with the ex-Air India pilots. Early January this year, the 8,000-member strong Aviation Industry Employees Guild (AIEG), issued a strike notice to the airline as they had not been paid salary since November 2011 and since August had not received productivity-linked incentive (PLI) which constitutes 70 per cent of their emoluments. This was hardly surprising as the airline has a debt burden of `43,000 crore and accumulated losses of over `20,000 crore. The airline also owes `230 crore to oil companies, undisclosed sums to the Airports Authority of India and over `400 crore towards repayment of loans. Besides there are other miscellaneous financial commitments such as dues to vendors, caterers, expenditure on maintenance, repair and overhaul, commis-sion to agents, payments towards IT and reservation systems, etc. But as per AIEG, emoluments of employees have been withheld despite rise in passenger revenues by `109 crore in August and `1,200 crore equity from the government in the last fiscal. The AIEG perceives this as a total disregard of the welfare of employees and utter mismanagement.

But like strikes, if Air India has displayed any consis-tency, it has been in respect of mismanagement, more so after Praful Patel’s historic strategic blunder of merger of Indian with Air India. From an annual loss of `448 crore in 2006-07 pre-merger, losses in 2007-08 jumped to `2,226 crore, `4,000 crore in 2008-09, `5,400 crore in 2009-10 and `7,000 crore in 2010-11. The management has not only been under pressure battling internal problems of the air-line and the obstinate unions, the challenges they have been confronting on account of constant political and bureaucrat-ic interference have been more daunting.

Russi Mody, who was the Chairman and Managing Direc-tor (CMD) of Air India in 1993, quit in disgust as his efforts to turn the national carrier around were frustrated by bu-reaucratic sloth and interference by the government. Michael

Mascarenhas, who had been in senior positions with Air India management for several years, was appointed as the CMD in 2001. However, on account of differences with the then Minis-ter of Civil Aviation (MoCA) on his push for privatisation of Air India, he was summarily removed. Similarly, Raghu Menon, a bureaucrat, who took over as the CMD from V. Thulasidas, fell out of favour with the then MoCA and was eased out.

Arvind Jadhav, an officer of the IAS cadre, had the de-termination to put the airline back on track. Despite his bold decisions, he did not succeed due to lack of support from the government as also lack of cooperation from the employees whom he had managed to antagonise. When he handed over last year, the airline was in serious financial distress with staggering cumulative losses. Rohit Nandan, another bu-reaucrat who has served in the MoCA and has taken over as the CMD from Arvind Jadhav, has been in office just for four months. But as yet there are no signs of the reversal in the downslide. Perhaps the malaise is so deep that one ought not to expect miracles. However, the way Air India has been man-aged especially in the last five years, it is abundantly clear that bureaucrats have proved inept in managing a large com-mercial venture. Bereft of autonomy and freedom of action, their difficulties are compounded by unwarranted bureau-cratic and political interference. It is also clear that despite the rhetoric on government support and periodic infusion of funds, chances of a turnaround for the national carrier ap-pear somewhat remote. The old adage that “the government has no business to be in business” could not be more apt than in the case of Air India. In the final analysis therefore, if the airline is to survive, there is no alternative to privatisation. SP

— Air Marshal (Retd) B.K. Pandey

Despite the rhetoric on government support and periodic infusion of funds,

chances of a turnaround for the national carrier appear somewhat remote. The old

adage that “the government has no business to be in

business” could not be more apt than in the case of Air India. If the airline is to survive, there is no alternative to privatisation.

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