Back to back, two important events—one in civil and another in defence—were held in March. While the fifth edition of India Aviation Airshow, a biennial event in Hyderabad, unveiled the expanse of opportunities in civil aviation, the ninth edition of Defexpo, held in Goa for the first time, indicated the potential for ‘Make in India’ in the realm of defence and aerospace. The talking point at Defexpo was certainly the choice of venue – moving it from New Delhi to Goa which primarily is a holiday destination. That the organisers made massive efforts to pull it off is commendable, but the considered choice of majority is New Delhi in terms of business.

A common theme that pervaded both the events was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative. The government must move forward decisively and ride the wave of the ‘Make in India’ philosophy to produce a combat aircraft of at least the fourth plus generation in collaboration with a suitable foreign partner and in the numbers required to restore the operational edge that the Indian Air Force (IAF) must have against its potential adversaries. In fact, given the rapidly dwindling numbers in the fleet of fighter aircraft, there is genuine concern about whether the IAF will be able to sustain the level of operational capability required to take on both the adversaries China and Pakistan at the same time.

In its bid to galvanise the indigenous industry with the help of foreign OEMs, the government unveiled the revised Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) at Defexpo 2016. The Minister of Defence, Manohar Parrikar, categorically stated that the DPP would be reviewed again, while conceding that ‘it is not all perfect’ and that the government would listen to the industry. The newly introduced provisions will specially benefit the Indian MSMEs who have enormous potential to contribute meaningfully towards innovation and indigenisation. There are however a number of infirmities in the document that need to be addressed urgently for timely modernisation of the Indian armed forces. A review of DPP 2016 by Group Captain A.K. Sachdev (Retd) has been included in this issue.

Big companies such as Boeing, Airbus and others have started making fundamental shift in their strategies to fit into the ecosystem of developing an indigenous aerospace and defence industry. While there are undoubtedly a number of options before the nation for collaboration with global aerospace majors, in this issue of SP’s Aviation, the article entitled Fact File by Air Marshal B.K. Pandey (Retd), reviews the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet and highlights the offer from Boeing for manufacturing the platform in India. A review by R. Chandrakanth of the contribution by Boeing towards modernising the inventory of the IAF in respect of transport and helicopter fleets has been included in this issue.

From the two events in India, we move to Asia’s major business aviation show – Asian Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition (ABACE) to be held in Shanghai this month, when there is a pall of economic gloom pervading around the globe and in particular China. The economic slowdown in China is going to have a cascading effect on the business aviation segment, but ABACE is all geared up with positive sentiments. On the other side of the globe, Brazilian Embraer is all excited about its E-Jets E2 family, the first of which was rolled out, in February this year, expected to change the way regional aviation is going to fly.

Meanwhile, a team of Indian Air Force is in Alaska to participate in the Exercise Red Flag with the United States Air Force. All these and more apart from the regular features in this issue of SP’s Aviation. Welcome aboard and happy landings!