BENGALURU – Aero India 2023 took place in Bengaluru from 13 February to 17 February 2023, and was inaugurated by the Honorable Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi.
In this event, Air India finally announced it largest order in the aviation industry with Boeing & Airbus. We were able to interact with some companies and of course enjoy the Air show.
AviationSource writer Gaurav Gowda reports his experiences from the event.
Trentar
On our first day we witnessed the signing of an MoU between Trentar and Antonov. They also unveiled their next generation technology for an an unmanned helicopter at Aero India.
Trentar is a vertically integrated organization with in-house R&D, design, software, firmware, manufacturing, services and training operation.
The company is also ‘backward integrated’ from the services to the platforms to the subsystems.
In 2021 the company acquired a controlling stake in drone-based service provider and artificial intelligence (AI) powered platform GarudaUAV.
Soon afterwards, the company went ahead and acquired a controlling stake in RFLY innovations which was India’s one if the most innovative startup in UAV designs to UAV delivery sector.
Pawan Hans Limited
Pawan Hans Limited, a Government of India enterprises was also present at the event showcasing its far spread reach in the aviation industry in India.
CMD of Pawan Hans Shri Sanjeev Razdan was among the other officials from the company present at Aero India. Since its establishment, Pawan Hans has been playing a vital role in connecting the remote areas of the country, and continues to do so.
Recently under the RCS UDAN (Ude Desh ka aam nagrik) an initiative of the government of India, Pawan Hans launched 6 new routes in the state of Assam.
Pawan Hans has recently leased six Sikorsky S-76 D from Milestone Aviation Group in a bid to upgrade its existing fleet.
According to their website, the company currently has 43 helicopters in its fleet and is targeting to expand that number to 100 helicopters by 2027.
Optimare
Optimare specializes in providing high-quality airborne systems for maritime surveillance. Having interacted with Dr. Tobias Binkele who works as a Sales Engineer in Mission system, he explained about what the company was involved it.
Dr. Binkele said “Optimare is based out of Germany, and we are working in a field of oil spill surveillance or maritime airborne surveillance systems. We develop software machine system and additional hardware sensors and hardware machine systems.”
Our products helps in – let’s say when you are an oil producing country and you would like to check if there are any oil spills in your fields.”
“For instance, spilling of oil in water or tankers – to detect such occurrence in real time you can use our system and put it on an aircraft and check it thoroughly.”
“You can cover a huge area in just one flight thereby helping save money and time for the companies”.
Day 1 Experience at Aero India 2023
Aero India took place at the Indian Air Force station located just outside the city – near to Bengaluru International Airport.
Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru had to halt its operations during the time of “Flying Display” due to its close proximity to the Air Force station.
The “air display” component was just outstanding – F-35’s of the United States Air Force (USAF) had created a lot of buzz well before they even arrived and well, they certainly did live up to the expectations.
The C-390 Millennium of Brazilian Air Force became a selfie hotspot, and Embraer flew its aircraft amid the Indian Air Force looking to procure a Medium Transport Aircraft (MTA).
There was no official announcement regarding its intent, but on all the 5 days of the Aero India show, many Indian high-ranking officials visited the aircraft and spent quite some time going over it.
Team “Suryakiran” got the entire crowd on its feet and excited with their world class air display, they fly the squadron with HAL HAWK Mk-132 aircraft.
This was then followed by a roaring fly past and air display by LCA Tejas, which is designed and manufactured by HAL India.
Stay tuned for more news and images coming out of Aero India 2023 in our Part 2 article.
