Aerospace Diary

13th July 2018 - 03:00 GMT  |  by  Neelam Mathews  in Delhi India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has released draft regulations on requirements for civil UAS operations, but it is yet to release its regulatory policy, ......... ‘We are trying to push the ministries of home and of civil aviation, and integrating the two is proving to be a challenging job,’ said Amitabh Kant, CEO of Niti Aayog, ...Read more in Shephardmedia.com

Pix Neelam Mathews (copyright) Neelam Mathews Dec 6, 2017 ShephardMedia The Indian military’s desire for UAVs will soon be boosted with further RfPs. While the army is already processing  an RfP  for mini-UAVs, India is looking to push on towards integrated army, navy and air force buys for   MALE   and HALE UAVs, for which RfIs have already been issued ...

With ‘Make in India’ the new mantra, NEELAM MATHEWS reports on the advent of the private sector in India’s aerospace industry (Aerospace UK) A decade of policy paralysis is giving a new ray of hope to the sluggish Indian aerospace industry — until recently dominated by slothful staid public sector companies plagued with delays with neither the will, nor the inclination to innovate or move forward. Driven by the promised speedy and transparent policy for aerospace manufacturing by the, now over one year old, Narendra Modi Government, that has made ‘Make in India’ its mantra, the entry of private sector into forbidden territory is changing the very dynamics of the business. While there remains a slip between the cup and the lip, $30bn worth of contracts cleared by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) in the past year are awaiting release of Request for Proposal (RFP) that, in theory at least, needs to be closed within a year. The new defence procurement policy once announced, it is ...

LAND WARFARE India’s medium tank won’t clash with Arjun 27th August 2015 - 9:00 by  Neelam Mathews  in Delhi  The Indian defence minister, Manhoar Parrikar, has stated that Indian Army requirements for a medium tank are not in conflict with the  Arjun  Main Battle Tank (MBT). He said on 4 August that the need for 2,545  FRCV medium tanks  are to meet futuristic requirements beyond 2027 and won’t affect orders for Arjun. Meanwhile, Shephard has learned that the date for submission for the Army’s Request for Information (RFI) for the FRCV design has been extended to 30 August. This is because industry was finding it difficult to respond to the initial six week deadline. According to the RFI, ‘the FRCV will form the base platform for the MBT which is planned to replace the existing T-72 tanks in the Armoured Corps.’ While the skimpy six-page RFI has been criticized on its sketchy details an official said that it is ‘just an attempt ...

 Neelam Mathews   Aug 25, 2015 The FlyEye mini-UAV will be offered to the Indian army by Kadet Defence Systems in partnership with WB Electronics of Poland. (Photo: WB Electronics) An Indian Army requirement for approximately 600 sets of mini- UAV s is attracting interest from various manufacturers, who must partner with Indian companies to comply with the government’s “Make in India” industrial strategy. The Directorate General of Infantry has issued a request for information ( RFI ) that will be followed by a request for proposals by late 2016. Indian companies will make the bids. The   OEM s include two Israeli companies: Aeronautics, maker of the Orbiter mini- UAV , and Elbit Systems, maker of the Skylark. Aeronautics' partner is not yet known, while Elbit might team with Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd ( HAL ). AeroVironment will   co-develop the Cheel —a version of the Puma—with Dynamatic Technologies. Boeing is with Tata Advanced Systems ...

UVonline The Indian UAS market is looking strong after years of stagnation. Neelam Mathews rounds up the latest development T hanks to the government’s push to ‘Make in India’ combined with some longoverdue action on procurement decisions that had taken a back seat for the past decade, UAVs are high on the agenda for military and security agencies. Newly forged public-private partnerships are driving growth in an industry that was previously restricted by slow-moving statesector development programmes. Given the country’s manufacturing boom, ‘initiatives of development are being done in India [now] at multiple levels as sources of technology are dispersed, and are not dependent on just one or two OEMs’, said Rahul Gangal, partner in the New Delhi office of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. India’s 6Wresearch has forecast the domestic UAV market will reach $421 million by 2021, although this figure may need to be revised given the i...

by  Neelam Mathews  Aug 5 2015 The Cheel UAV to be co-developed in India by Dynamatic and AeroVironment will be a development of the latter’s Raven, seen here. (Photo: AeroVironment) Bangalore, India-based Dynamatic Technologies is co-developing a new generation lightweight unmanned aerial system (UAS) with AeroVironment of the U.S. It is named the Cheel (Hindi for Eagle) and will be based on AeroVironment’s proven expertise , with the design evolving from the 5 kg Raven and 12 kg Puma UAS. The project is one of the six “pathfinder projects” identified under the U.S.-India Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI)  earlier this year . “The first Cheel will fly eleven months after formal approval,” Udayant Malhoutra, Dynamatic CEO and managing director told  AIN . The Indian company is already a supplier to Airbus, Bell and Boeing and has built an advanced avionics and communications laboratory; payload developm...

Neelam Mathews June 19, 2015 The civil aviation policy promised last year by the new Indian government is stalled, leaving new carriers Vistara and AirAsia India hoping for a relaxation of the rule that mandates a domestic carrier must fly for five years and have a fleet of 20 aircraft before it can fly internationally. There is good news, however, with increasing attention on engineering design services and component manufacture in the commercial and business aviation sector, opening opportunities in this sector. “Defense offsets in the procurement guidelines can be used in the civil aviation sector. This has the potential to give a major boost to this sector in the country. We are looking at it and will take it forward,” confirmed Ashok Gajapathi Raju, India’s Civil Aviation Minister. The Indian  MRO  market was estimated to be worth roughly $800 million in 2011 by consultants Frost  &  Sullivan, and was to touch $1.5 billion by 2020. This h...

Posted By Neelam Mathews March 30, 2015 Welcome to Episode 022 of the #PaxEx Podcast. Our guest for this episode is Neelam Mathews. Based in Delhi, India, Neelam has been writing about Asian aviation and beyond for over a decade. She has done long stretches of writing for  Aviation Week ,  AIN ,  Jane’s Airports , and  is now a contributor to  RGN . The aviation industry is grappling with another tragedy, the crash of a Germanwings Airbus A320 in the French Alps. Audio from the cockpit voice recorder indicates that the captain was locked out of the cockpit, and couldn’t get back in. The French prosecutor in the case   asserts that the first officer deliberately flew the A320, with 150 people on board, into the French mountainside . However, the guts of the flight data recorder have not yet been found. This crash – and the fact that sourcing information from the physical black boxes is crucial to understanding what happened in any accident –...