Aerospace giants eye Indian market, manpower

With the procurement of the multi billion dollar, Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA) by the Air Force — that has dominated the last three editions of the Aero India — now out of the way, the biennial show is set to focus on more mundane things like global shortfall of aerospace engineers, unmanned aerial vehicles, and civil aviation.

The shift of focus of the air show from top notch fighter jet technologies to emerging concerns is evident not just in the line up of aircraft for the main event, set to begin on February 6, but also during the seminar and meetings that began on Monday.

President of Royal Aeronautical Society in the UK Phil Boyle, who spoke at the opening of the technical programme of the seminar, outlined civil aviation and unmanned aerial vehicles as the key areas of growth for the industry. While growth in the Asia Pacific region is leading the demand in the civil aviation sector, 80 countries have an ongoing UAV programme by one name or the other, he said. A fifth generation advanced fighter aircraft was briefly mentioned by Boyle as something for the industry to look forward to, but included the caveat of cost and time for its development.

The real challenge to the aerospace industry is its aging workforce in the US and Europe, he said. "There is a shortfall of engineers partly due to the demographics of the industry in the US and Europe," he said. The increasing shortage of aerospace engineers is resulting in Indian engineers being more sought after on account of the nearly 2.50 lakh engineers produced in the country every year, Boyle said. "Indian engineers are being sought after by the US and Europe. It is their potential that is underpinning your regional dynamic and your local aerospace industry's development and production. The UK has built its aerospace industry through international collaboration. We need to take that collaboration forward into our most precious of resources — human resources,'' he emphasised.

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