Trendy wings for the jetsetting corporate sector vie with serious issues pertaining to environmental concerns and India’s procurement policy even as the race for the MMRCA deal hots up with two of the frontrunners drawing aces.

Business aviation has over the past few decades assumed mind-boggling connotations. Earlier, company executives made do with converted military and airline airplanes, which often were overly large and costly, both to acquire and to operate. Today, the range of offerings in the business jet segment of general aviation is quite wide. In the Cover Story, LeRoy Cook painstakingly elaborates on the plethora of choices. Some of these trendy jetsetters were seen at the three-day Latin American Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition held at São Paulo’s Congonhas International Airport from August 14. A pictorial spread captures the buzz and the business. On the flip side, boom in aviation has inevitably invited the spotlight of environmental concerns on the sector. Taking up the challenge of reducing greenhouse gases, jet engine manufacturers have already embarked on developing green engines that reduce emissions and noise pollution.

Meanwhile, the race to bag India’s medium multi-role combat aircraft deal hots up in the pages of this edition with Dassault elaborating on the SPECTRA—a state-of-the-art selfdefence system mounted on the Rafale. On the other hand, Eurofighter Campaign Director in India Matthias Schmidlin spells out the benefits that would accrue to India if it accepts the EADS offer to join the Eurofighter programme.

Enumerating on a key aspect of defence acquisition, InFocus and Forum ignite a debate on the enigmatic L-One (L1)—simply put, the lowest bidder among shortlisted vendors who meet all technical criteria. Does the concept work towards the goals and objectives for which it has been put in place? Undeterred by policy hurdles back home, the Indian Air Force (IAF) persists in its efforts to consolidate its overseas relations with the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal F.H. Major, paying a three-day visit to Malaysia. Underlining the vital implications of the visit, LastWord reasons that while Malaysia’s objectives in seeking India’s assistance for training on the Su-30 fleet may be limited, the experience will enable the IAF to grow in capability, confidence and reputation to lend credibility to the nation’s regional power status.

Doing India proud, the IAF participated in Exercise Red Flag 2008 at the US Air Force Base Nellis, Nevada, which concluded on August 23. Eight Sukhois along with two IL-78 mid-air refuellers and an IL-76 heavy-lift aircraft flew over 120 sorties just in the work-up phase. If daredevil performance earned the force accolades, the IAF’s culinary spread to celebrate Independence Day had the hosts quite literally eating out of their hands! According to a senior IAF official, The IAF hosted a small lunch for the US Air Force and South Korean Air Force personnel on August 15... finding a taste for the Indian delicacy, the air warriors also tried to emulate the Indian way of eating rajma-chawal—that is, by hand. They were licking their fingers at the end of the lunch. Now turn the pages to feast your eyes on the special moments.