Boeing over rainbow with hi-tech wings

With a strength of 30 specialists who would in turn be collaborating with over a 100 worldwide, the center hopes to accelerate the collaboration of Boeing with the academia, in highly specialized areas of aviation research. Vishnu Anand of CyberMedia News talks to Dinesh Keskar, president of Boeing India. Excerpts:

What would be the areas of technology research at the Boeing center launched in Bangalore?

Globally, we at Boeing have constantly innovated using technology, in all relevant areas. Of late, our focus areas of research have been Aero structures, electrical networks, and aerodynamics.

As an offshoot of these, complex technologies like computational fluid dynamics, and simulation of non-destructive aircraft capabilities, that require constant research and innovation, will be carried out in Bangalore in collaboration with our worldwide research offices.

What is the nature of collaboration with the academia that Boeing has embarked on?

Since 2007, Boeing has been engaging actively with institutions like the Indian Institute of Science, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and others, in broad research areas targeted at analysis, materials and processes, and software.

For example, research is already underway with NAL in the area of landing gears, and with IISc in the area of structuring technology.

Technologies like RFID, motion detection and others are extremely vital to Boeing and we hope to increase our involvement with institutions and the technology companies as well. Boeing already has associations with Wipro and HCL. We are looking to strengthening them.

Any plans to engage with smaller technology companies?

On one hand we have companies like Wipro and HCL, and hopefully more to follow! Boeing is aware of the fact that there are a number of smaller and mid-sized IT companies in India that are doing remarkable work which is relevant to the aviation industry. Once the research and technology gets underway, tapping the SMB market is definitely on our road map.

What can we look forward to in the months to come, from the new research center?

Like the other global research of Boeing, the Bangalore center too has been created with affordability, sustainability, performance and sensitivity to the environment as its core ideals. Boeing, over the last 3-4 years, has been focusing, besides our passenger carrier capabilities, on the military and is looking to create air machines for warfare.

As the center evolves, research would be carried out in this area as well. But the fundamentals remain the same for both passenger jets and warfare planes. The basic research would hence remain the same.