Aeroplane September 2017

AEROPLANE SEPTEMBER 2017 http://www.aeroplanemonthly.com 19

Flight LineFlight Line

Comment

T

his year’s Salon

International de

l’Aéronautique — and

more recently also ‘de

l’Espace’ — at Le Bourget was

the 52nd in a series that

started in 1909, initially as an

outgrowth of the Paris motor

show. As mentioned in the

May issue, I fi rst visited in

1967, when I was but a lad,

and have been back

intermittently for 50 years

since. How did Le Bourget

2017, the largest trade airshow

in the world, stack up against

the competition?

Paris still attracts the largest

number of exhibitors, even if

manufacturers — and

particularly American

manufacturers — quietly but

fervently wish it would go

away. They reason that nobody

actually goes to an airshow

and decides, on the spur of

the moment, to place a

massive aircraft order without

previously having negotiated it

for months, if not years. Events

such as Paris are today more

about announcing than

generating orders. These

totalled $150 billion this year,

but it is increasingly diffi cult to

prove that attending a show

creates new business. In 2003,

much of its aerospace industry

and the US military boycotted

Paris, but commercial

pressures, and the fear of

missing out, soon brought

them back.

Le Bourget is a great show

site with public transport

connections that put

Farnborough to shame and a

€14 (£12.50; less than the

airshow price of three Wall’s

Magnums) public entry price

that encourages the next

generation. The organisers

have the recurrent problem of

keeping ‘big-name’ aircraft at

the show once the fi rst trade

days have passed. This year,

two noteworthy newcomers in

the shape of Brazil’s KC-

and the stretched A350-

had left by mid-week, no

doubt to continue test

programmes or to undertake

sales tours. British

participation was decidedly

low-key. In the weekend fl ying

display, the UK was

represented only by a Hawker

Hurricane — and a French-

registered one at that, Jan

Roozen’s MkI P3351. The Le

Bourget crowds are openly

range. First impressions were

of a drone re-engineered as a

manned aircraft. Which, in

fact, is pretty much what it is.

The Salon is not just about

all that is new, however. The

Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace

is open without charge

throughout, for visitors to walk

through and enjoy its

unrivalled display of (mainly

French) aircraft. And other

historical artefacts are there if

you look for them. On what is

now the concrete apron at Le

Bourget can be found an

engraved stone plaque that

commemorates the spot

where Charles Lindbergh

touched down on 21 May

1927 after his epic,

pioneering, trans-Atlantic

fl ight. Now well-worn by the

passage of time and feet, this

is in every way as signifi cant as

the raised brass plaque,

known to all British

schoolboys, on the deck of

HMS Victory that announces,

‘Here Nelson Fell’.

DENIS J. CALVERT

Recollections and refl ections — a seasoned

reporter’s view of aviation history

ABOVE: Heading the British export drive at the Paris show, Hurricane P3351/F-AZXR. DENIS J. C ALVERT

enthusiastic, applauding

displays that they especially

appreciate. That tends to

mean French participants

(Chauvin, remember, was a

Frenchman) such as the

Patrouille de France, which

was allocated the top-of-the-

bill 15.00hrs display slot, and

the solo Armée de l’Air Rafale,

although the F-35A’s routine

with its ‘square loops’ also

drew genuine and

spontaneous applause.

As at Farnborough, there is

much enjoyment in seeking

out the wacky newcomers.

The Mini Bee-Plane is one

such project. A two- or

four-seat VTOL ‘personal

aircraft’, it features electric

propulsion driving eight fans

— four fi xed and four

tilting. This French project,

still some way from fl ying,

is promoted with the slogan

‘Drive your Aircraft!’ Another

futuristic design, albeit one

that had at least reached the

hardware stage to be on show,

was the SureFly, an eight-rotor,

electric-powered two-person

helicopter with a 70-mile

The plaque marking where Lindbergh

touched down is as signifi cant as that on the deck

of HMS Victory announcing ‘Here Nelson Fell’

19_AM_FLIGHTLINE_Sept17_CC C.indd 19 31/07/2017 10: