India seems to be emerging as a hot spot for global aircraft manufacturers, not just as a market but also as a destination to outsource manufacturing and software development.
While the European aircraft maker, Airbus, has started talks with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited to develop components for its latest offering, the A380, in India, Boeing has awarded a new deal to the Shiv Nadar-promoted HCL Technologies to develop software for its latest aircraft, the 787 Dreamliner.
According to Boeing's senior vice-president Thomas Pickering: "HCL Technologies will focus its software development services on two aspects of the 787 programme. First, it will provide a hosting platform for the flight test computing system to support the requirements of the 787 global team. Second, the company will be providing software development services to many of the 787 systems partners."
Boeing is also working with the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in a strategic alliance to conduct research in aerospace materials, structures and manufacturing technologies. The alliance with IISc will provide innovative ideas and help infuse the best of these technologies into Boeing.
The focus of the Boeing-IISc strategic alliance spans the range from nanotechnology, structural alloys, composites, smart materials and structures, process modelling and simulation, manufacturing technologies and prototyping through substructure fabrication and testing. These are technologies of critical importance to the future of aerostructures.
Airbus, which has already allocated manufacturing work worth over $80 million to HAL, was in talks with the Indian company to be part of the Airbus A-380 programme.
"We have been working with HAL and are in talks for some work for the A-380 also," said David Velupillai, regional press manager, Airbus, which also has industrial relationships with Infosys, HCL Technologies, Midhani, Computervision and Vidhyacom.
It is worth noting that the two aircraft makers are in a bitter battle over many contracts in India, including that of Air-India and a host of private carriers.
Airbus has had an upper hand in recent times, with the majority of the aircraft orders going to it. The most noticeable among them is the order from Indian Airlines to buy 43 aircraft, which went to Airbus.
It has also been pointed out that more work will be outsourced to India as most of the orders from the state-run carriers will be linked to counter-purchase agreements.