Airlines - The Way Out

The aerospace industry has always been the driver for state-of-the-art technology. India is lagging behind in the sector and indigenisation is the only route that will address this deficiency. The Indian space and missile programmes prove that the capability exists and what is needed is proper direction and will.

Despite the fact that there is no dearth of professionally qualified youth having best industrial minds in the world, the civil segment of the Indian aerospace industry has failed to convert potential into performance. This inadequacy is glaring, especially in core areas involving indigenous lead technologies where the scientific community has failed to excel or achieve the requisite performance levels. A critical area where this weakness is manifest is in the design, development and production of indigenous commercial aircraft. Producing a sustainable and successful indigenous aircraft involves high-end technologies and success in this area would propel India into the league of successful industrialised nations.

The aerospace industry in India has in the public sector, a military and civil aeroplane design house under the Ministry of Defence Production and a civil aircraft design house under the Council of Scientific Industrial Research (CSIR). The responsibility for vetting of design and for quality control is vested in the Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification (CEMILAC) for military aircraft and in the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for civil aircraft. The two design houses have some of the best professionals and the wherewithal to design and produce aeroplanes. However, despite more than six decades of existence, the Indian aerospace industry is yet to emerge with a successful commercial aeroplane of indigenous design. Brazil, a developing nation like India, began designing commercial aeroplanes in the mid-1960s and today, Embraer has carved a niche for itself in the global commercial regional jet segment. It is believed that representatives of Embraer visited India in the mid-1960s to understand how a third world country could set up an aeroplane factory.

Given the experience with the indigenous space exploration and missile programmes, it should be quite possible to replicate the successes in the indigenous aerospace industry. It is evident that core competency and the potential exist to excel in high technology areas including integration. However, what needs to be analysed is the factor that ails the indigenous aerospace industry which is unable to deliver the requisite results.

Why Indigenisation?

The aerospace industry operates at the forefront of technology, industrial production and quality control. Research and development (R&D) in aerospace technology has automatic spin-offs for other technology-driven sectors such as the automobile industry. Successes notched up by the aeronautical design houses will, therefore, provide the much needed impetus in other sectors. Merely setting up of maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) facility for commercial aircraft driven by cheap labour is not enough. To move ahead, a number of issues need to be addressed not only by the government but also by the leading industrial houses in the country as well. Investment by the government as well as industrial houses in R&D technologically driven sectors is essential for any industrialised nation. Despite the best of human resources available, the Indian aerospace industry has been unable to ‘deliver’. Some of the reasons are as under:

• Inclination to opt for complex designs at the outset.
• Stringent timelines for completion of designs.
• Reluctance to at least licence produce aircraft.
• Tendency to widen the scope and adopt an all-inclusivesky-is-the-limit philosophy.
• Lack of vision and leadership in the aerospace industry.

Complex Designs

Instead of adopting the incremental approach, there is a tendency to select complex or unique designs in the very first attempt or reinvent the wheel. In an effort to virtually reach the moon, the exercise falls well short of the objectives in respect of the desired results, the time frame envisaged or the performance parameters expected. For example, in an effort to produce an aircraft for the flying clubs, instead of a simplistic design, acceptable performance and easy maintainability, the industry opted for an all-composite body and wing. Although the prototype of the aircraft named Hansa was rolled out successfully, by its very nature, aircraft made of composites are difficult to mass produce and certainly not easy to repair. Besides, progress of projects is impeded by the frequent revision of objectives by the user or by other roadblocks.

This problem not only ails the civil sector but also the defence sector. The programme to develop a high-performance FADECbased Kaveri aero-engine is behind schedule by over two decades. Patents exist with the CSIR labs for producing large single-piece aircraft components made of composites but the industry does not have the capability to mass produce the developed technology. There is a huge gap between R&D capability and production facilities especially in the private sector. Capability of R&D in developing achievable designs needs to be exploited.

Stringent Timelines

In conformity with national trends, there is a tendency to accord unrealistic timelines for projects. The timelines set need to be decided in accordance with the capability of execution of projects and needs to be realistic. There is also a need to have better accountability in respect of targets defined and achievements made.