VISITING CESSNA-LINK

I wrote about visiting Cessna facility to look up my new Citation Mustang. That story can be found here.

Singapore Air Show 2008

Singapore Air Show is being held for the first time, this year. The air show that was organized in previous years was by a different organization and was called the Asian Aerospace Expo. That event has now moved to Hong Kong. The show was from the 19th of Feb to the 22nd, it is the last day today and a public day. The two days of the weekend were for public days and judging from the sheer volume, it is a hit with the public, attracting over 40,000 people per day. The trade days were for delegates, customers (such as myself), sellers, exhibitors and so on.

(Selvam, me, representatives for Cessna in this region Ms Chong and Dato Lee)

Here are some positive things to say about the air show. Firstly, the venue is great, plenty of space, a purpose-built indoor exhibition space, huge by any standards and well organized. The tarmac area is more than adequate. The show is very well connected by MRT/Bus, Taxis, own transport and so on.

(Fighters and bombers made their presence felt as always)


Here are some not so positive things to say about it. This show was really small compared to Dubai. At least it seemed that way. There were for sure, a lot less Aircraft on static display. Vast area of the tarmac was absolutely empty. Dubai was leaps and bounds bigger and better in terms of deals and sales concluded. However, Dubai was poorly connected, no buses running round the clock during the show, severe shortage of taxis and really expensive taxis. The exhibition hall in Dubai and the layout was confusing unlike Singapore. Dubai had great volume and poor organization. Singapore had poor volume and great organization. So there.

(The Cessna 400 single engine seen from the cockpit of the Citation Sovereign)

I had promised all, in my last blog post, that I'd post pictures, so here they are. The Singapore Air Show for me was a good one. I had plenty of work with Cessna Aircraft. They are the manufacturers of the Citation Mustang Jet and as mentioned earlier, my new company will acquire two this year. One Aircraft is due in late March and I had meetings related to this at the show.


(Citation Sovereign outside and with me inside)


Cessna also reported large orders from Indian promoted Singapore operator BJet. The TATAs' have a stake in it and some jets are likely to be based out of Seletar Airport here. A flight school in India ordered a large number of piston engine Cessna 172 training Aircraft and Cessna reported that single engine piston Aircraft sales were at record levels this past year and looking good for this year as well. The all-new Cessna Columbus also made the news here. It is a new large Cabin concept Jet to be designed and built by Cessna. This is a product many Cessna faithful were looking for, from a long time. The largest they had ever built is the hugely successful Citation X, the World's fastest biz jet. Let's hope the Columbus gets off the drawing board and into production real soon. Other maufacturers such as Gulfstream had brought in their G150, 200, 450 and 550 large executive jets. Here's a picture of a G450 with the clergy also evaluating the Gulfstream line and why not?


Falcon had brought in their new Falcon 7X whose pictures I have in my Dubai Air Show article. Embraer had their Legacy 600 and Eclipse had their Eclipse 500 VLJ, again these photos also appear in the Dubai Air Show. As in the recent past, Indians almost dominated the show in numbers, or at least seemed like it. India had a pavillion with the same old H.A.L and defence exhibits. Chinese and Indonesian operators also made their presence felt, ordering large number of transport Aircraft.


(The Airbus A380 super jumbo)


The flying displays were the usual standard that one gets to see at every air show. The Republic of Singapore Air Show put up a grand display with their F-16 aerobatic team. The Airbus A380 made another appearance, on the ground as well as in the air. As always it's great fun to see this big bird make fantabulous displays in slow flight. The show ends this afternoon and I'm looking forward to the next one in two years time. A new air show is planned to be organized in Hyderabad, India this year. Farnborough U.K. has announced that it will partner that event. The chances of me being there with one of my Mustang jets on display, is very high. See me at the show, October of 2008.

MYSORE AIRPORT – LATEST NEWS AND UPDATE

In December 2005 – two years ago, I wrote about the plan that the Airport Authority of India was making, to construct a regular airport in Mysore, India, my home town. Later on in April and May 2006 I followed up this story and made critical comments on how the airport project was making sound bites of the wrong kind and how the local media wasn’t getting it right either. As promised in my blog of April 2006, I am updating the news in my new blog that I use for writing only on aviation and aviation related matters.

I am late in updating news and that has been due to a combination of the fact that the much announced and much awaited (20 years or more in the waiting!) project ran into troubles from the start and also because I could not gather any information on the progress, if there was any, of the project because I was away overseas for all this time and no news or data was available on the internet about this airport. If you the reader attempt to research this airport on the internet, you’ll just come up with links to my blog and articles I had written last year on other online aviation magazines.

Well, I’m glad that this time I made it to Mysore on a very brief trip and managed to go to the construction site to see for myself what was going on. I had met the Airport Director of the Bangalore International Airport before heading down to Mysore and had a fair idea of how things had progressed in the time I was gone and since the days of my first writing on the subject two years ago. The Director had been candid about the problems they had faced and the commitment they had for the project that kept it going nevertheless.

(The present "terminal")

Here are some pictures of the Airport, a Second World War surplus airfield, with a grass strip that was once used to fly DC-3 Aircraft and trainer Aircraft such as the Famous biplane the Tiger Moth. These pictures at least give the impression of activity going on at the Mysore Airport. What I saw while I was there seemed impressive, truck loads of material was seen arriving every five minutes, material that would be used at the site. The main runway to cater initially for ATR-72 type Aircraft (68 passengers) is being completed. This will be extended in the second phase to accommodate larger Aircraft such as the Airbus A320/Boeing B737 types. When it gets done in the first phase, it will be a great place for companies to set up light Aircraft/corporate Aircraft maintenance and a flight school and the latter seems to be an idea that may be already in the pipeline, from an undisclosed private party.

(Path from the tarmac area towards the old terminal building)

What I could see is that their first goal of laying the runway was almost over and this is to be followed up by putting in the taxi ways, tarmac area and the airport terminal building. What you see in this picture is the original old “terminal” building that used to be operational even 20 years ago when Vayudhoot (a commuter airline those days) operated a Dornier 228 to and from Mysore using the grass runway. The present estimate for completion of the project is October of 2008 and the officials are confident of meeting this deadline. I’m planning on a trip out to Mysore Airport again sometime in May/June of next year. I’ll update the news on the developments and I’ll encourage Mysoreans to keep their fingers crossed in the meantime and hope that the Airport will be opened soon; it will bring a sigh of relief to the locals.

(construction equipment working on the main runway)


Happy Holidays and Happy 2008 to all, may everything that you aspire for, come true next year. Cheers.

DUBAI AIRSHOW PICTURES

In my blog about Dubai Air Show, I had posted some pictures. Since this blog is dedicated solely to aviation, I have decided to post more pictures of the event that took place in Dubai between 11th and 14th November and happened to be the third largest air show in the World and one that is emerging as a leader in Asia, air show wise and also perhaps because this show will have a dedicated new venue in the form of the new Jebel Ali Airport coming up soon.


(Air Show Main Hall)


(ATR display model)


(Sukhoi Super Jet - an Aircraft in the 100 seat category that is being jointly developed by Sukhoi of Russia who are more known for their military Aircraft and the Italian Company Alenia who is well known as the manufacturer of the ATR Aircraft)


(Above and below are the display model of the Cirrus Jet concept Aircraft. It is designed to be a single pilot/owner pilot jet Aircraft. Cirrus is a manufacturer of the famous SR-22 single engine Aircraft that revolutionized the industry with innovative technologies including an in-built parachute system for the entire airplane)



(Above and below is the Cessna Single turbine engine utility Aircraft)



(Different aerobatic teams put up displays every afternoon during the airshow)


(Above and below-The Airbus A380 Super Jumbo made an appearance and put on some flying displays but the Aircraft was in Airbus colors, Emirates Airlines purchased 55 of these at the air show)


The air show ended as a commercial success, with the promise that the next one to be held in 2009 at the new venue will be a bigger version of the event. Watch this space!

New Post - Aviation

(Me on a P51 Mustang)

After a long hiatus, I am reviving this blog. I have been actively writing on another blog site and topics there started with aviation in the beginning and then I sort of branched it off to include travel related topics. While the going has been good and I have traveled a lot and hence can blog a lot, I and some friends connected with aviation found that I was not doing any justice to aviation. I began that blog to reflect my enthusiasm for aviation but I did not persevere with that subject. The good thing is that the travel blog (as it may now be called) has enjoyed some support from non aviation readers who would not have, perhaps, read my blog if it had been only about aviation.

(Premier 1)

When I re-read what I wrote in my first post on aviation, on this blog, last year, I am happy to note that things which I prophesied at that time still hold true and trends are continuing that way, especially what I briefly wrote about with respect to GA/Corporate Aviation. Now, this blog is going to be based entirely on aviation, news about aviation, the events happening in this field and my analysis on the happenings. I may also be forecasting things but these will be purely my assumptions and I do not encourage anyone to use the data or assumptions that I will provide, for any commercial use or base their commercial or non commercial decisions based on my forecasting or anything I write about, such responsibility will be on the reader only. In the past my writings have been used by others, a plagiarism of sorts, and while I cannot encourage that sort of copying behaviour, it still is beyond my control. I can only ask people who want to use my material, to first obtain my permission before using the same. I may not oppose using my material in other publications so long as the columnist or author obtains my permission to do so.

(Flew in a T28 courtesy my friend Chuck at Camarillo, California)

I thank everyone who have been supportive of my other blog at http://mymysore72.blogspot.com and encourage them to read about aviation on this blog from time to time and ask questions on the subject, especially about things that I write about, should the reader not understand the subject or anything associated with it. I may also cross post what I write here, on the other blog as well, especially if the subject is of interest to the readers there as well.

I will post aviation photographs that I take from time to time and may even post photos that have not been published yet on my other blog. For example, I have taken many more photos of the Dubai air show but have selectively posted them on the other blog. On this one, I'll put in more info and photos of the air show as well as other hitherto unpublished pictures. As always, please click on the pictures to view them full size. Enjoy.

Aviation Issues in India and the Region-New Blog

I've got a blog at mymysore72.blogspot.com where I wrote about aviation in general and diversified it into a forum for me to write about my travels as well. A blogger, Mr. GV Krishnan, based in Mysore, India egged me on to write aviation specific blogs that would highlight some of the deficiencies in Indian Aviation and what needs to be done to improve things.

It is common knowledge for anyone flying in the Indian skies as a passenger that it is a hassle to fly. There are lots of Airlines these days connecting just about everywhere one would want to go and that's not the problem. Actually, that's the good thing. The bad part of the entire rapid expansion is that the much needed infrastructure has not caught on and developments in this area is woefully slow.

The job situation in Aviation is good, pilots, engineers, cabin crew, ground support staff ET AL never had it so good. However, the Airlines are not doing so well. In their mad dash to be one up over the next operator, they are all painting RED. That's never good for a business that is capital intensive and these days over competitive. Us aviation chaps know that this field is a big hole, a bottomless pit where one pours in the money and the pit never fills up. Its a common joke to say that if one wants to be a millionaire in aviation, one should start with many millions!!

Private and corporate aviation activity is doing well. Here, there is a genuine need for business travel at schedules and routes convenient to the companies that own these Aircraft. The spurt in the purchase of corporate Aircraft may naturally result in, although not significant at this time, to make a dent in the business class travel on the Airlines in the long run.

Business class makes money for an Airline, lets not make any bones about this fact. In fact business class perhaps subsidizes those sitting back there in the "cattle class". Kingfisher Airlines in India realised that fact and what started out as a high density all economy seating Airline grew into a two class Airline. With that it hope to take on the other established "legacy Airlines".

There are more problems than solutions and not many solution providers. What I'll attempt to do is to keep writing about the problems, hoping that some one takes notice and does something about it. Easier said than done, in India. Solutions sometimes are staring in the face but people fail to recognize them. More in my next post.