The 7th Edition of Aero India, Asia’s premier Air Show, will be held in Bengaluru from February 11 to 15, 2009. In size and number, this is going to be the biggest air show, hosted by India, so far.

Organised by the Ministry of Defence and managed by the Confederation of Indian Industry(CII), the Air Show will be inaugurated by the Defence Minister Shri AK Antony on February 11 at Air Force Station Yelahanka, Bengaluru, .

Aero India has already carved a niche for itself globally as a premier aerospace exhibition, with six successful editions organized between 1996 and 2007.

The show aims at bringing under one roof, exhibitors from all around the globe to showcase the best in aviation. Aero India includes both flight and static displays of a wide range of civil and military aircrafts from leading manufacturers, vendors and suppliers.

India’s opening up of the defence sector to foreign direct investment, the ongoing modernization plan of its Armed Forces and enormous new opportunities in the civil aviation sector have opened innumerable new avenues for investment. Aero India 2009 will provide an ideal window of opportunity for companies to not only network with the Indian Industry but also to benefit from the sharing of expertise in the fields of R & D production and product support with other global players.

Aero India 2009 will showcase the latest in the field of Military and Civil aircrafts, vital components for aircraft
engines, avionics systems & sub systems, airfield radars and new age technologies used in the defence sector.
592 exhibitors from 25 countries will participate at the show. Of them 303 are from overseas and 289 from home. The participating countries include UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany,
India, Italy, Ireland, Israel, Malaysia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands and Ukraine. China will be participating at this year’s Air Show for the first time.

A number of aircraft including F-16, F-18, MiG-35D, Eurofighter, IJT, Dhruv, Hawk, C-17, Embraer 135 business jet Legacy 600, C-130J, Citation XLS,G 550, AN-12 Cargo and A-310 MRTT will be on display. Flight displays will be between 1000-1200 hrs and 1430-1630 hrs.

Defence Ministers from as many as eight countries will converge on Bengaluru for the show. The countries are France, Peru, Bolivia, Surinam, Mongolia, Oman and Maldives. Besides high level delegations from 40 countries
will witness the Show.

There would be some new dimensions to the Aero India 2009. These include business to business meetings and human resource focused activities, apart from a space pavilion. There will be structured business to business
meetings to offer maximum business opportunities to participants. To expose Indian human resource potential in Aero Space Sector, IIT Bombay, IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras and also various other engineering colleges will display student based project in Aero Space Sector. Information will be shared, which will focus on giving exposure to students from Class 3 to Class 12 on various aspects of aviation in the form of dummy display and video clippings. About 200 students from Municipal to Corporate schools in Bangalore will be given exposure everyday during the entire duration of the show.

550 sq meter space pavilion is being set up by ISRO, which would be located along with the Human Resource Pavilion in exhibition area. There will be 40,000 Sq Meter of indoor display and another 4,000 Sq Meter outdoor display.
To facilitate easy purchase of tickets, 24 locations at SBI outlets and Café Coffee Day have been selected in Bangalore.

Source: www.aeroindia.in