Aviation Week's Le Bourget Update

Red, White & Blue (pt 2)

Making its Le Bourget debut this year will be the Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor. But plans right now foresee the F-22 only in the air, not on the ground. The U.S. Air Force will likely base the stealth fighter in the U.K., eshewing French hospitality for good security -- the moves comes just after U.S. Air Force sent the stealth fighter to Japan, for its first serious overseas deployment.

The Pentagon has a long track record of bringing its best and finest aircraft to Le Bourget. Unfortunately, it’s the memory of some of those experiences that has them looking to base the F-22 somewhere else.

U.S. sources tell us they believe the French may have shown a bit too much interest in the F-117, when it was first brought to Le Bourget. The customs inspection was exceedingly thorough, and they were probably not looking for contraband, but secrets, the U.S. officials suspect. They also believe French air traffic control deliberately routed the aircraft past French military electronic collection posts, to see what data they can gather.

Also part of U.S. Le Bourget lore is the B-1B’s first appearance. The French are accused of having played games with timely supply of fuel to the bomber, thereby delaying its aerial performance. Ce n'est pas possible, the french will probably argue.

With the F-22, nobody is willing to play those games. So, an aerial display will be all the crowd can look forward too.

To read more on the F-22's overseas exploits, check out the April 23 issue of Aviation Week & Space Tehnology.

All Politics Is Local

There’s always much buzz about what’s new at Le Bourget. Last time it was the A380, but since then it has had numerous worldwide appearances -- even if not in customer hands -- that make the aircraft old news by now.

   What is certain, though, is that the ceremonial event on Monday, which is called presidents day, will see a new face. With presidential elections in France slated to play out in the coming weeks (it’s a two-phase process and the first round is set for April 22) and the incumbent not in the running for reelection, the Paris Air Show will get a new host. It will not just be the president that changes, though.

   One French industry official points out that it may just be a day or two before the show starts, that the names and faces of the new cabinet will be known. With the defense and industry ministers historically visiting the site, this could be their first public appearance. Their pronouncement are sure to be closely watched for any hint on future government spending plans or industrial policy or -- for those World Trade Organization watchers -- subsidies.

   The stakes are important not just to French industry. The highest profile project hanging in the balance is the French-U.K. cooperation on a future carrier. Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royale has suggested she’d terminate the program and divert the funds to bolster education spending. She's also saying Airbus should scrap its Power8 restructuring scheme.

   BTW, look closely at the picture and you'll notice that it's not just Jacques Chirac (center) that'll be out of a job, Noel Forgeard on his right has since been sent packing, too, and former EADS co-CEO Rainer Hertrich (on Chirac's left) also is no longer in that post. 

Red, White & Blue

The U.S. industry and government presence is at the heart of each Le Bourget, not least because the American contingent is the largest from outside France and dwarfs all the other foreign representations. That’s why Le Bourget suffered four years ago, when political disagreements over Iraq kept the U.S. delegation small, and it recovered two years ago when the U.S. was back. And with one of the architects of the transatlantic rift, French president Jacques Chirac, firmly gone by then, the “freedom fries” affair now seems largely closed. U.S. firms will take more than 22% of the available space at the show this year. That’s despite persistent efforts at the large companies to keep delegations small. Le Bourget, of course, is the one time in the aerospace industry the current euro-dollar imbalance doesn’t play in the U.S. favor. Anyone Americans checking, buying a euro will cost you $1.34, check the current rate here, and the trend lines mean that could get worse by June.