A Word from Editor

The Farnborough International Airshow (FIA) 2018 was held in July this year in its usual venue in the United Kingdom. Staged since 1948, this biennial event alternating with the Airshow in Paris, is today, the second largest Airshow in the world and is a forum for networking in the domain of the global aerospace industry, both military and civil. Despite the shadow of Brexit, FIA 2018 was the high point for the global civil aviation industry as the event was clearly dominated by Boeing and Airbus, the two global aerospace majors who only reinforced their lead in the global airline market. A report on the Airshow by Rohit Srivastava of SP Guide Publications figures in this issue of SP’s AirBuz.

A Tata-Singapore Airlines joint venture full service carrier Vistara that commenced operations in India in 2015 has a vision for growth in the future that indeed is impressive. This issue of the SP’s AirBuz carries an exclusive interview of Leslie Thng, Chief Executive Officer of Vistara wherein he shares plans of the airline for the future and his optimism about the prospects of growth of the carrier.

Pratyush Kumar, President, Boeing India along with Ankur Kanaglekar, Director, Strategy and Business Development, Boeing India, write about the company’s new venture to exploit the next generation of game-changing ideas, technologies, products and markets. Towards this end, a new effort by way of Boeing HorizonX India Innovation Challenge 1.0 was launched to catalyze innovation across the evolving aerospace ecosystem in India. In Boeing’s perception, India is home to the world’s third largest start-up ecosystem which is a testimony to the inherent innovation and the entrepreneurial streak that India’s talent pool harbours.

A major challenge that leading engine manufacturers in the world are confronted with today, is the urgent need to improve fuel efficiency of aero engines and lower emissions. The good news is that there has been significant progress in this area and hopefully aero engines of the future will have much lower levels of emissions. In this issue of the magazine, there is an article by J. Noronha on new engine designs that are aimed at addressing the issue of environmental pollution. While the Indian aerospace industry has notched up moderate success in the design, development and manufacture of military aircraft, it has made little or no progress in the domain of civil aircraft. In an article in this issue of SP’s AirBuz, Sukhchain Singh has an in-depth analysis of the issue of the totally indigenous production of a civil airliner by the Indian aerospace industry.

Despite the huge potential, efforts since 2010 by the private sector to launch seaplane services in India have not succeeded and had to be abandoned on account of stringent regulatory frame work and the issue of financial viability. However, with the recent initiatives by the government in this domain, there appears to be a strong possibility of this segment of the industry becoming a reality. Another initiative in the domain of civil aviation that is being seen as a game-changer for the civil aviation industry, was the first flight powered by bio-fuel undertaken by SpiceJet aircraft on August 27, this year. A brief report on this historic event has been included in this issue.

All this and more in this issue of SP’s AirBuz. Welcome aboard and happy landings!

Jai Hind!