Airbus is actively looking at increasing its sourcing of composites—the most critical material that goes into making aircraft lighter and more fuel efficient—from India, said a senior executive in a recent interview.
The suppliers being looked at include the Adani Group which is actively setting up capabilities in this segment, Ashish Saraf, Airbus’ vice president for industry development, strategic partnerships and offsets told ET.
Airbus has a total of 46 suppliers in India. It’s sourcing from India last year totalled over $550 million. Sourcing of composites will significantly increase this number.
“The new area that we are looking to do is composites. We see a good supply base developing in India for that segment. Composites is a very high-tech, super-speciality manufacturing area. And it’s growing a lot as the presence of composites in airplanes these days is significantly higher than the previous years,” said Saraf, who is dubbed Airbus’ “Make in India” man.
Prior to joining the Airbus Group, Saraf was the India head of the Tata-Sikorsky joint venture since 2010 and led Sikorsky’s industrialisation and strategic partnerships in India.
“Adani Defence & Aerospace strongly believes that carbon composites and allied advanced materials will redefine the aerospace and defence industry in the coming years, similar to how aerospace grade aluminum and special alloys transformed the industry a few decades back,” said Ashish Rajvanshi, Head – Defence and Aerospace, Adani Group.
The Adani Group has formed a joint venture with an Israeli company called Elbit Systems on unmanned aerial systems (UAS) or drones called the Hermes 900.
Adani Defence & Aerospace is now setting up a facility in Mundra, Gujarat to make carbon composite aerostructures.
“The complex shall have 50,000 square feet carbon composites aerostructures facility addressing the global and local needs for defence aerospace programs. The facility shall be doubled in the coming years to 100,000 sqft to further address the civil aircrafts programs,” Rajvanshi added.
“We are currently having discussions with OEMs for composite aerostructures and aero components for the global aerospace and defence industry. We are confident that we will be able to meet the global requirements and quality standards of the aerospace majors like Airbus,” he said.
Making of composites will also be Adani’s latest initiative as part of its planned foray into aviation. The conglomerate’s private airport in Mundra is one of the first to see a commencement of commercial flights under the government’s regional connectivity scheme called UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik), which loosely translates to “Let the common man fly”.
It has also reportedly brought a majority stake in new regional airline Air Odisha, earlier owned by Air Deccan.
Composites have now become increasingly popular in aerostructures to the extent that they account for 50%-70% of most new aircraft structures. Popular composite structures include fiberglass, carbon fiber, and fiber-reinforced matrix systems or any combination of any of these. The greatest advantage of these is weight reduction and a resultant fuel efficiency. Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner plane was the first one marketed primarily on its composite structure—it was 50% made of the material–which made it significantly lighter and fuel efficient than its competing peers.
Saraf said Airbus already does some sourcing of composites in India from Tata Advanced Materials (TAML). TAML, part of the salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Sons, is a tier II or indirect supplier to Airbus and sells components that fit into its A320 family, the most popular airliner in the world, the wide-bodied A350 family, and the A380 jumbo jet, the biggest passenger aircraft by capacity currently flying.
He added that some other companies such as the Goa-based Kineco Kaman Composites and the Adani Group are in the reckoning. Kineco Kaman is a joint venture company between Kineco Group of India and Kaman Aerospace of the US.
Source: Economic Times