India's talent to design aircrafts for Boeing & Airbus

By siliconindia   |   Friday, 16 October 2009, 14:31 IST   |    6 Comments
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India's talent to design aircrafts for Boeing & Airbus
Bangalore: India's talent is now being tapped for the design and system integration of aircraft as well. Aerospace majors such as Airbus and Boeing have formed partnerships with the IISc (Indian Institute of Science), IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) and IIM-B (Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore) to develop their next-generation air-birds, including A380s, A350s and the 787 Dreamliner. As reported by the Economic Times, Chief Executive Officer of Airbus Engineering Centre India (AECI) Eugen Welte said, "Of the 130 people recruited here, 120 are engineers and the company will increase the number to 400 by 2012." Their company had decided to set up operations in India to source talent and develop competency here. He also added that the availability of the talent pool in India can play a major role for future projects such as building planes, which are 30 percent more efficient than today's craft. "We are going to start strong research and development (R&D) activity in India. We will look at future materials which can reduce fuel consumption, noise and weight." According to Joellle Willaume, Head of the Engineering Division at AECI, the projects are focused on high-end technology. "Young people can bring in a lot in terms of innovation. We will be going to IISc and IITs for campus recruitment by December-end or early January to recruit more hands. We are also sending engineers to Europe to gain more expertise from teams there," he said. At AECI, Arpita Sen, a 24-year-old graduate from IIT-Kanpur, plays a key role in engineering design of planes in the areas of system integration and flight control. "I have been applying all what I learnt at the IIT here", said Arpita. Also, Tarun Jain, a 26-year-old graduate from IISc, said, "We are working on designing an antenna to provide internet service in planes." Boeing has stated that another 100 engineers will collaborate with its various projects being carried out with premier Indian academia and R&D institutions. The Boeing lab will be partnering with IISc to develop and integrate advanced structural technologies to enable future aerospace structures. It will also be working with National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) for analysing and testing aircraft landing gear. Boeing, which started its Indian lab in Bangalore with 30 engineers, said that this lab was the third of its kind outside the U.S. "As part of our internationalisation strategy, we will offshore 20 percent of our work by 2020, and India will get a big share of this followed by Russia and China," said Welte.

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