Aerospace Diary

Neelam Mathews April 19, 2013 We're told Augusta Westland AW 101s VVIP helios contract is ‘on hold’. Interestingly, the contract does not have this clause and there is no laid out document that describes the two deadly words! Incidentally, also on hold are ten containers from AW lying in the customs for weeks containing spares, tools, consumables. What is the guarantee that water leakage is not happening already or that the heat may affect solvents etc that might be in the containers? Can there be some sanity to the idiom ‘on hold’ here? Who will pay for this ultimately, one wonders? Not difficult to fathom! A definition on the net describes ‘On Hold’ –“ to stop all activity or communication with someone” and also “to postpone something; to stop the progress of something,” and I can bet a wager there are hundreds more. So while India might consider it to mean ALL its dealings stop in the interim, AW might not. Word has it they are sticking to the schedule for delivery...

Neelam Mathews March 5, 2013 Honeywell and Airports Authority of India will sign a contract on March 6 – under the US-India Aviation Cooperation Program (ACP) – for a Ground Based Augmentation System (GBAS) system at Chennai International Airport, Aerospace Diary learns. USTDA, had in 2011, concluded an agreement for $407,325 to support AAI’s efforts to install and commission a pilot at Chennai. AAI will pay approximately Rs 5 crores for the equipment, which an official says is a “discounted price.” A maintenance contract has yet to be signed. Honeywell’s SmartPath Precision Landing System is a CAT I certified GBAS solution for precision approach and landings, enabling aircraft to fly either complex or straight-in approaches. Easy to install, it is expected to have major cost savings compared to Instrument Landing Systems (ILS). It is also more flexible than ILS – one GBAS can broadcast 26 unique approaches covering all runways at an airport. The ILS covers only one end of o...

Neelam Mathews Washington D.C June 19, 2012 As the requirement to get the additional six C130Js from Lockheed Martin gets imminent, the Indian government  seems to have got embroiled in a mesh that involves crossing its Ts and dotting its Is. Since the lead time for delivery is around three years, the need to make a decision seems all the more urgent. . The heart of the matter may be the contract itself which India holds rigidly close to its heart. Meanwhile though the US has strict laws, it does leave space for flexibility.  Delays like this have already resulted in losing the technology edge that India swears it needs. Aerospace Diary learns an offset program for RFID that was to be executed in India could not be initiated fast enough by BEL and a private company as bureaucratic processes got in the way. With no moves on it for two years, the projected was abandoned since technology had moved on. The cost of entry for the new technology , being too ...