Bharat Rakshak

Vistara may buy Jet.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/in ... 628400.cms

Kumbh mela in mumbai


Global Aviation Summit & Expo 2019
January: 15-16, 2019, The Grand Hyatt, Mumbai
http://www.globalaviationsummit.in/

India revives its dream of manufacturing passenger aircraft.

It was March 6, 2009. A 14-seater prototype aircraft called Saras Prototype 2 crashed during a trial flight in the outskirts of Bengaluru, killing all three crew members — twopilots of the Indian Air Force and a flight engineer.

During the investigation, the cockpit voice recorder disclosed the commander calling out,“aircraft has departed”, just 10 seconds before the crash, indicating that the plane had gone out of control as soon as it took off.

The 75-page investigation report pinpointed human errors, but did not spare the manufacturer of the plane, Bengaluru-based National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), for devising engine relight procedures — a midair test that involves switching off an engine before switching it on again — without consulting the propeller manufacturer MT-Propeller of Germany.

The plane had lost altitude and crashed, but the tragedy had a direct fallout: India’s dream project of manufacturing a small civilian plane, the Saras — the Sanskrit word for crane — was stuck in limbo.

By 2016, NAL, the agency that comes under the administrative control of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), announced that its Rs 300 crore fund for the project had dried up, forcing it to suspend Saras for the time being.

It was a project that began in 1991. In fact, there was another prototype — the Saras PT, which flew successfully many times since 2004. It has been modified as the 14-seater Saras PT1N and flown again earlier this year, for a surprise trial.

Something much bigger than Saras is in the offing now. Nine years after the PT-2 crash, the Centre is thinking of indigenously manufacturing aeroplanes for civilian use.

Earlier this week, a 21-member jumbo expert committee, headed by the civil aviation secretary, was set up to look into the various aspects of manufacturing planes and helicopters in India, apart from finding ways to upscale and diversify production of aerocomponents.

Significantly, this is the second panel being set up in the last two and a half months; the first was headed by the ministry’s economic adviser, Vandana Aggarwal, with a mandate to give a roadmap for creating a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to develop what it calls regional transport aircraft, or RTA.

The need for such a segment has been increasingly felt after the government rolled out its UDAN scheme for regional connectivity a co[ple of years ago.

“What’s being discussed is the feasibility of manufacturing aircraft of 19- to 100-seater,” an official connected to the panel told ET Magazine, adding
that its recommendations would be ready by the end of this month. This panel, constituted on August 30, has four members — a general manager-ranked officer from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), a group director of Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and senior scientists Abhay Pashilkar and RV Venkatesh, both belonging to NAL, the creator of Saras. Rs 80 crore is earmarked for the purpose of designing the regional transport aircraft manufacturing project.

“The Government of India is fully committed to the development of commercial aerorelated manufacturing in India,” Minister for Civil Aviation Suresh Prabhu told ET Magazine, adding how two committees would engage in deliberations simultaneously. “Both the Government of India and Indian industry are serious (in manufacturing civilian planes),” he says.

Bigger Planes
Though information on a likely road map for manufacturing aeroplanes in India is still sketchy, two things are amply clear. First, unlike the earlier avatar Saras, which was a small, 14-seater, this round of manufacturing may embark on building relatively bigger aircraft, up to 100-seater and even more.

There are 1,358 aircraft in India, including private ones and those used for training purposes, as on July 12, 2018. There are 620 aircraft of scheduled Indian operators. Of these 79 planes have less than 100 seats. In that category, 70 aircraft have 70 seats and above.

The smaller ones include three 50-seater CRJ-200 aircraft flown by Zoom Air, two 48-seater ATR 42-300 of Alliance Air and four 18- seater Beechcraft 1900D planes of Air Deccan and Air Odisha. The data, compiled by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), throws up the question whether there will be any demand for a 14-seater, Saras-type aircraft — something that was conceived back in the 1990s, even though the government tries to revive the project.

Airlines in India, which foresee growing air connectivity to smaller cities, may prefer 50-to-70-seater planes rather than smaller ones.

However, state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is scouting for buyers for its 19- seater Dornier-228, hitherto flown only for military use, saying the aircraft is cheaper and has low maintenance costs. It was in December last year that HAL obtained licences for the use of Dornier for civilian purposes.

Second, unlike in the past, the government may engage private players — either foreign or Indian — for manufacturing aeroplanes. It’s unlikely that the aircraft will be a pure NAL-CSIR venture like the Saras, says an official in the know. That could propel the government into a turbulent zone. Already, the partnership of Dassault Aviation and the novice in the field, Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence, in the Rafale fighter jets deal has become a political hot potato. “We will follow due diligence. The decisions of both the expert committees will go for inter-ministerial consultations and also the approval of the cabinet,” a civil aviation ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

Founder of Air Deccan, Captain GR Gopinath, bats for the involvement of private sector, saying the government must not get into the manufacturing of civilian aircraft. “India must create a global aircraft brand with great quality and at a good price point. The idea is to tap the global market, like Brazil’s Embraer and Canada’s Bombardier have demonstrated.”

Already, pressure is mounting on India to plunge into the manufacturing of civilian aeroplanes after China came out with models such as COMAC C919, a 168-seater, narrow-body jet, which many aviation experts happily compare to AirBus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX. The aircraft is likely to be used by China Eastern Airlines by 2021, according to various news reports. In India, sarkari hurdles are more complex.

Even after the crash of Saras PT-2 in 2009, the Government of India continued its dream project for some time. By then, various stakeholders
such as CSIR, Department of Defence Production and the Civil Aviation Ministry were not on the same page, resulting in a further slowdown of the project.

Even after the crash of Saras prototype aircraft, we continued our efforts under a regional civil aviation project. It can now be reignited only if there¡¦s a clear ownership of it, with no turf war between government departments, says Nasim Zaidi, who first served as DGCA (2008-10) before getting elevated as secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation (2010-12).

Maybe there will be less confusion now on who would pilot the new aeroplane project, after the government, in July last year, changed the allocation of business rules, allowing the Civil Aviation Ministry to pursue the development of commercial aero-related manufacturing and its ecosystem, a subject that was handled by the Department of Defence Production.

There's no doubt now who the pilot is. The only uncertainly is whether there will be a clear sky ahead.

In other news, NAL has signed a
NAL signs pact for 2-seater Hansa aircraft production

The National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Bengaluru and Mesco Aerospace Limited have signed a collaborative agreement for the design, development, production and marketing of the two-seat HansaNext Generation (Hansa-NG) aircraft, which NAL claims which help ease the availability of indigenous aircraft for pilot training to obtain private and commercial pilot licenses. The collaboration has been approved by the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)—under which NAL operates—and the aircraft, NAL claimed, will be ready for first flight in the next 11 to 13 months.
“The plane will be certified under the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for commercial flights by March 2020. Post certification, the HansaNG shall be manufactured by Mesco Aerospace under a license agreement,” a statement issued by NAL read.
.............

“Now, NAL and Mesco will modify Hansa-3 aircraft by incorporating new technologies and bring out Hansa-NG, which will satisfy the requirements of flying clubs for obtaining PPL (Personal Pilot License) & CPL (Commercial Pilot License) by the young generation,” the statement read.
.............
The modifications that are planned are: Use of an advanced engine with better fuel consumption, changing the instrument panel from analogue instruments to digital display system, increasing the range and endurance by reducing the airframe weight and drag, reducing the pilot load by changing the mechanically operated flaps to electrical operation, aircraft steering operation to be made simple by introducing steerable nose wheel, providing heated pitot for IFR compliance, LED lights, provision for baggage, ergonomically designed doors for better ingress and egress and improvement in interior aesthetics.

The timeline is possible, but I I have no faith in NAL being able to stick to it. The new engine in question is Rotax-912iSc sport engine. Seems to also have better nose fairing than the current aberration. Fairing for LGs have also been introduced.

This picture from 2017 already showcases Hansa 3 with the updated glass cockpit from AI 2017. So this is certainly doable.


But who goes for those kind of interiors on a light trainer. Cuts into payload, fuel, range!

What about engines? Start now at least R&D. Otherwise it will be half done.

A Youtube video reporting that a light business jet model GLJ-3X1 will be on display at the Aero Show in Feb. It is being developed by Bangalore based Genser Aeropsace. If true then this is a well kept secret as there was no previous news about it. Model looks very TFTA and the specs are: 7+2 seater with twin turbofan engines having cruise speed of 840 kmph and a range of 4100 km.




Promoter Team is EX HAL/NAL and Airforce personnel. Website address is: http://www.genser.com/index.php

I don't think it will be the actual jet...probably a mock up/scale model. BTW, Genser Aerospace has a very small team and I haven't heard anything about them recruiting, at least even the half of numbers required to pull off a project like above. I hope to be proven wrong but I do believe it is a case of building up the hype.

This is what I had hoped NAL saras to morph into, but more of a commuter plane rather than a business jet.

Zynda wrote:I don't think it will be the actual jet...probably a mock up/scale model. BTW, Genser Aerospace has a very small team and I haven't heard anything about them recruiting, at least even the half of numbers required to pull off a project like above. I hope to be proven wrong but I do believe it is a case of building up the hype.

choti muh, very very baadi baath.

They have nil capability.

Govt. to move nearly half of Air India’s ₹55,000-cr. debt to SPV
https://www.thehindu.com/business/Indus ... 626174.ece

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/csir- ... 598461.ece
CSIR searching for commercial partner to run flights on biofuel

Who would have thought that dozen years ago, a private airline started by a NRI would be now the mightiest carrier in India

https://mobile.twitter.com/capa_india/s ... 4521378816

In the last 15 years, the commercial Indian airline fleet has grown by close to 500 aircraft. IndiGo has added 200 of these, the first Indian carrier to reach this milestone.

Indigo was cofounded by Rakesh Gangwal, formerly CEO of US Airways and EVP at Air France .

The Indonesian transportation safety committee has released its initial findings on how the Lion Air crash happened. See the article linked below.
https://leehamnews.com/2018/11/28/indon ... sh-report/
A summary of the findings according to one technical expert is as below.
Like all catastrophes, it aint just one thing.

1. Boeing adds a new safety system (MCAS) to cover up the fact that the new 737Max doesn’t fly the same as the older 737s, and doesn’t’ disclose the new safety system. They don’t want airlines to have to re-certify pilots on the new plane (“Any 737 cert pilot can fly the 737MAX”).

2. Lion air pilots fly this plane for an entire flight with the Angle of Attack (AOA) sensor mafling, don’t return to base, don’t adequately describe the problem in logs. They also had runaway trim due to the AOA failure.

3. Lion air follows Boeing reccs for repair of the AOA sensor but don’t test fly it. AOA won’t come active until it is flown, and it fails again in the next fatal flight.

4. Something else unknown happens as the pilots are struggling against the new MCAS system that deployed incorrectly based on the bad AOA sensor data.

5. 189 people die.
Disclaimer. I am no expert. I am just reproducing someone who is well versed in aviation safety.

Tomorrow 20th Dec there is a webinar at 3pm on "Regional Transport Aircraft of India" by Mr. Jitendra Jadhav of NAL. This is part of Aero India 2019. Should be open to all. Aero India must be having link on their site. So should Dept of Defense prod.

Modi Government To Now Pump $330 Million Into Air India

https://www.ndtv.com/business/modi-gove ... -topscroll

the usual annual bailout. must be tens of billions in total.

As per new plan, this 2000 crore would be the last infusion into Air india. 30K cr out of 50k cr debt will be transfed to a SPV. This will be recovered by sale of assets, lands and subsidiary sale. So some breathing space provided by way of capital infusion and debt relief. Now it is upto AI workers to make use of this new lifeline.
Doubt they will change.

Suraj wrote:Indigo was cofounded by Rakesh Gangwal, formerly CEO of US Airways and EVP at Air France .

And backed by the deep pockets of Boeing's financing arm for aircraft purchases - or am I thinking of another carrier here?

Is the Indian just a front for what is a foreign corporation, one wonders.

JayS wrote:Tomorrow 20th Dec there is a webinar at 3pm on "Regional Transport Aircraft of India" by Mr. Jitendra Jadhav of NAL. This is part of Aero India 2019. Should be open to all. Aero India must be having link on their site. So should Dept of Defense prod.

Any one recorded this session

GLOBAL AVIATION SUMMIT & KUMBH MELA 2019
15 – 16 January 2019 | The Grand Hyatt, Mumbai
https://www.globalaviationsummit.in/

a CG walkthrough of the new GAU AAI terminal coming up. the old one is not bad but at capacity and its single level arr/dep does not work unless one is a fan of the bial dabba
new one has level separated arr and dep as with all modern apts




est cost 1383 crore and work started in may. I will visit this week and see whats up

http://www.airport-world.com/news/gener ... minal.html

earlier this year I was at GAU and the PAX load has to be seen to be believed. it was literally bursting at the seams with huge queues for departure & overcrowded terminal. a far cry from what I remember from even 3-4 years back, when it was a relatively laid back place. I have even boarded aircraft with 5 minutes to spare for the flight, which would be unthinkable elsewhere.
clearly, many more people are flying nowadays and GAU being the hub of NE needs a larger, higher capacity terminal by yeterday. and please get a prepaid taxi booth so that one doesn't have to pay Rs 600 for a trip to paltan bazar.

p.s. isn't the Oxomiya part of the name at the start of the video misspelled ? or is that how international is written ?

I think Antarjatiya is correct word.
see the comments - there is already a fight raging over using the bengali script there note the last letter "Raw" - outed!
the tiresome old barak valley vs brahmaputra valley wuff wuff

I am planning to send off inlaws and family in a innova and myself go slowly in a ASTC bus to get a better pulse of the place. returning as a prodigal son after 5 years.

jaysimha wrote:GLOBAL AVIATION SUMMIT & KUMBH MELA 2019
15 – 16 January 2019 | The Grand Hyatt, Mumbai
https://www.globalaviationsummit.in/

No way for aviation enthusiast or aaam admi to attend this

the longest flights within india?

delhi to port blair 3:45 hrs
delhi to trivandrum 3:20 hrs
guwahati to bangalore 3:20 hrs

we are using only about half the possible range of 737 internally, so no wonder the gulfies are swarming all over india with such planes and so are flights to east asia.

I once mentioned to a journalist friend of mine with some knowledge of flying (he had trained as a commercial pilot) that a technical halt at Istanbul should put West Europe and parts of East coast US within reach for private airlines to do more international flights with 737s or A320s fleet. The way I reasoned was the average Indian passenger with NRI children in the West would prefer a better spaced long haul flight than what they experience with connection out of Dubai or Abu Dhabi. He checked with a commercial pilot who said I was talking BS!

SpiceJet starting BLR-Shirdi direct flights in Jan. The entire pilgrimage circuit now becomes much more accessible from down south.

Shirdi->Shani Shingnapur->Nashik->Trimbakeshwar + Saptashringi

All those and Sula Wines

The 1.5-2 hour Nashik-Shirdi journey is much more convenient than the 3.5-4 hour Nashik-Mumbai one.

nandakumar wrote:I once mentioned to a journalist friend of mine with some knowledge of flying (he had trained as a commercial pilot) that a technical halt at Istanbul should put West Europe and parts of East coast US within reach for private airlines to do more international flights with 737s or A320s fleet. The way I reasoned was the average Indian passenger with NRI children in the West would prefer a better spaced long haul flight than what they experience with connection out of Dubai or Abu Dhabi. He checked with a commercial pilot who said I was talking BS!

I heard from an Indigo source that at one point was weighing options in using the longest legged A321LR or A321xlR series for all the way till London. Your pilot friend might not be relishing the flight duration being suggested on a tiny little cockpit inside a low-coast carrier

Trivandrum airport is to be privatised. Two of favorite foreign partners are Swissport and TAV of Turkey. Last of Comintern ruling the state is majorly upset and vouches to launch agitations against Central govt selling off 'valuable assets' before elections Trivandrum has some of the highest fares among Kerala airports, thanks to AAI's lack of interest in attracting lot more flights, unlike private folks. So entire Trivandrum air travel community rained fire on the commie leadership's pages for days. Lots of people claiming they used to vote left, but not this time etc. All in all, the state government is on a self-destruct mode in multiple spheres

I suspect Indigo might use their latest A-321NEO for few long distance flight with low cost option , The NEO is quite comfortable to fly in as I did recently in AI A320NEO compared to B 737-800 which is cramped , I am not sure if MAX will be any different.

NEO should be good for 5-6 hrs of flight

Indigo is planning to do low cost flights to Europe with 321 Neos including to London and Paris with a stop over at Ankara.

Vips wrote:Indigo is planning to do low cost flights to Europe with 321 Neos including to London and Paris with a stop over at Ankara.

I am not sure this will work between Delhi and London/Paris/Milan etc. could be interesting between tier 2 cities, with low cost terminals.

example.
Amritsar to Birmingham or Luton
Pune to Gatwick
Hydrabad to Stanstead.

Vips wrote:Indigo is planning to do low cost flights to Europe with 321 Neos including to London and Paris with a stop over at Ankara.

Not bad , The NEO looks beast of an aircraft and resonable comfortable as well.

Was chatting with a Pilot yesterday seems Blr Airport does not have CAT 2 & 3B landing instrumentation and he was complaining of 100 m visibility. Seems his airline has pilot trained for CAT 3B and aircraft too but Airport is an issue.

Was wondering how come Fighter Aircraft and Transport wing or helicopter of IAF land in bad weather or 100 meter or 50 meter visibility without the need for Cat 2 or 3B while Civilian aircraft need that ?

Bulk of the aircraft movements at BIAL are domestic flights. Domestic airlines pilots are not trained for Cat 3 ILS. Such training costs a lot of money and airlines fight shy of incurring that expenditure. The way they reason it out is that barring a few days in the winter and that too mainly at Delhi, having Cat 3 ILS trained pilots is a waste of money. Which is why even today we have a situation where there are flight delays and cancellations at Delhi despite the airport having Cat 3 ILS.

bial apt passenger a/c apron now extends nearly a mile long , well beyond the end of the T1 into areas near the cargo terminals to the west due to rush of a/c and need for additional parking stands at night.

the apron is being expanded now to fullest extent upto the edge of the taxiway that is parallel to the runway and this will permit the linking apron east of T1 to reach T2 and the new parallel runway.

touching around @ 1:10pm on monday, I counted 6 takeoffs and 2 landings within a 10 minute span.

usually 1-4 planes are always lined up at end of taxiway waiting for their turn.

there is no more any quiet period with lot of late night flights inserted to tap demand.

the terminal is fairly well designed but seat capacity after security and the shortish baggage belts are now stretched to capacity as planes are also getting bigger into the 180-220 range.

GAU is approved for a new terminal to replace the current outdated one which has only 10 gates (3 aerobridges) and checkin counters do not have the T shaped belt to take directly from weigh in to main belt.....narrow checkin counters..... pre xray needed before checkin ....
loud pavlovian AAI employee posters outside to "stop privatisation" of the airport.

I have heard all major airports to start getting the body scanning phone booths and back end checkin luggage scanners(those not yet having it) from this year.

the old stamped security label for carry ons looks to be gone.

When can we finally start using mobile boarding passes.. There were some murmurs of it being trialed, but haven't seen any action beyond that. Time to get rid of paper boarding passes - IR moved away from printed tickets eons ago, ironic that air travel which is regarded as more "advanced" is still requiring paper. At least domestic ops could be made paperless, scan the bar code throughout, and get checked-in baggage tags via SMS, etc.

Looks like Jet Airways is in trouble

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jet-airw ... nance.html

Shares in India's second-largest airline Jet Airways fell five percent Wednesday after the company admitted it had failed to meet debt payments to banks.
The airline hit turbulence last year after failing to report its quarterly earnings or pay its staffers including pilots in August.
Subsequently, chief executive Vinay Dube released the earnings and announced a cost cutting programme amounting to 20 billion rupees ($280 million) over the next two years.
"Payment of interest and principal instalment due to the consortium of Indian Banks on 31st December 2018 has been delayed due to temporary cashflow mismatch," the struggling airline said in a statement.
Jet added that it was in talks with the consortium led by State Bank of India (SBI)…..