Aerospace Diary

India’s longest rail-to-road bridge, the 5-km Bogibeel bridge on the Brahmaputra river in upper Assam, has faced challenges being the first to be totally steel-welded.  Photo courtesy HCCL India Neelam Mathews Feb 23 2016 India has much infrastructure to build but faces a daunting challenge seen in many developing parts of the world: remote construction. Firms in the Indian construction market, upbeat about the 18-month-old Narendra Modi government, have their hopes pinned on a budget that seeks to build infrastructure and connectivity in remote areas of the country. Projects expected to receive rural spending include roads and irrigation. The government is working on policies to attract significant investor interest and has plans to develop 66,117 kilometers of roads under different programs, such as the National Highways Development Project, a part of the Special Accelerated Road Development Program, in the remote northeast. It has set an objective of building...

Neelam Mathews Singapore signs up for space-based ADS-B data  Feb 24 2016  Aireon is to supply space-based Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B)  data for the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore  (CAAS) under a deal signed on on 18  February during the  Singapore  Airshow. The CAAS signed a 12-year contract to purchase the service,  beginning in 2018.  This is the first data services agreement for the Aireon service in the  Asia-Pacific region. In order to improve air traffic controller situational awareness, Aireon will provide data  for the entire  Singapore  Flight Information Region (FIR) by supplementing  existing surveillance sensors used by the CAAS. Over the next two years, CAAS will establish the necessary infrastructure to  integrate the Aireon service with legacy systems. The Aireon surveillance  system will use ADS-B receivers carried as hosted payl...

by  Neelam Mathews  -  February 23, 2016, 7:48 AM The Indian air force hopes that a commercial MRO can help keep its Anotonov An-32s in service. (Photo: Antonov) The Indian Air Force ( IAF ) will issue a request for proposal ( RFP ) next month for the overhaul of 20 Antonov An-32 airlifters to independent Indian maintenance repair and overhaul providers. The move follows  problems with an upgrade by the  OEM  in Ukraine, on the heels of deteriorating relations between that country and Russia. Meanwhile, a long-planned Indo-Russian project to eventually replace the  IAF ’s 105-strong fleet of An-32s has stalled. The former  IAF  maintenance commander Air Marshall P. Kanakraj set the scene for the  RFP  two years ago when he said, “We are expecting the  MRO  Industry to partner for reclamation, refurbishment and re-equipping of our aviation assets…both fighter and transport aircraft.”  AIN  ha...

Kurt Baes, Willem Romanus, Mattias Banck of Arthur D. Little The aerospace and defense (A&D) industry today struggles with a duality: defense-driven segments take hits due to significant governmental budget cuts, while commercial aircraft manufacturing is enjoying double-digit growth. Commercial aircraft deliveries at Airbus and Boeing grew by a CAGR of 7.5% between 2010 and 2015, with both companies registering record annual deliveries in recent years. Nevertheless, the commercial aircraft value chain is under stress: only half of the manufacturing firms in the chain show healthy profitability growth, and European players especially have struggled to enhance shareholder value. Which strategies should players take to surf the growth wave? Commercial aircraft manufacturing: steady and strong growth, sizeable order backlog Air traffic growth and the replacement of ageing fuel-inefficient aircrafts are driving the global commercial aircraft market. The two major OEMs, Ai...