The 2009 Paris Air Show (PAS)

In mid-June, as his technical aerospace business consultant, I accompanied Tom Williams, executive director of the Meridian Regional Airport, to the 100th anniversary of the Paris Air Show (PAS). Clearly, aviation has come of age since the first show’s hot air balloons and crude aircraft made of fabric, wood and wire. In the past 100 years, we have flown three times the speed of sound in the SR-71, been to the moon and back and are now flying an Airbus carrying over 550 passengers in comfort. My trip had an additional benefit; for I met with several retired U. S. Air Force (USAF) friends currently employed by major defense contractors and aerospace firms.



The PAS, held every other year, is the largest air show on earth. Its international scope is what sets it apart. Any company located anywhere in the world producing anything remotely connected to aviation had a display booth at Le Bourget. Impressive flying demonstrations ranged from the world’s largest airliner to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and several nations’ fighter jets. By special invitation, we were given a tour of the massive Airbus A-380 and allowed to climb into its fly-by-wire digital cockpit. We were also invited, along with Governor Haley Barbour, to tour of the new Lockheed-Martin F-35, fifth generation multi-role fighter aircraft.

The two principle foci of this year’s show were UAVs and the USAF's air-refueling tanker competition. Many nations and companies had UAVs of every size and shape for sale. The aircraft themselves are not very sophisticated; the magic is in their payload, which varies from simple cameras to exotic sensors and advanced weapons. At the other end of the price range, the first phase of the USAF's air-refueling tanker contract will be worth over $40 billion to the winner.

Last year the USAF selected a bid from Northrop-Grumman/Airbus. Boeing filed a protest, and the GAO decided that the USAF had made some errors and should reopen the bidding. The Department of Defense Request for Proposal (RFP) is scheduled to be made public in mid-July, so “fight's on” again. The winner of this second round is to be announced in the first quarter of 2010, a much shorter evaluation period than the original.

Should the Northrop-Grumman/Airbus team be selected, the air-refueling tanker will be assembled at a new aerospace plant to be built on the former Brookley Air Force Base in Mobile, Alabama. (I recall flying in there a long time ago as a young USAF lieutenant in pilot training.) The aerospace cluster that would unquestionably develop around this plant would have a regional economic impact on Alabama, Mississippi and northwest Florida that would be difficult to overstate. The Deep South's aerospace might would then be felt around the globe.

I would simply hope that our war fighters get the aircraft they need, with the final decision based on merit not politics. We can plan on its being around for a while. The current KC-135, our principal tanker, is 49-years-old. In Air Force jargon, that is “old iron.” The stakes could hardly be higher.

For me, the PAS was a week's sojourn into the international aerospace economic sector. As they say in the aviation business, “Until you have been to the Paris Air Show, you ain’t never been nowhere and you ain’t never done nothing.”