Le Bourget Bounces Up

Finally, eighty years after Lindberg’s landing at Le Bourget, and 100 years after the first helicopter flight, the 47th Paris, Le Bourget Air Show was very much focused on green issues. Both Airbus and Boeing were highly emphatic about their ‘rising to the challenge’ of reduced fuel usage and emissions. However, Jean-Paul Béchat, CEO of Safran, pointed out this is not new for engine manufacturers: “This has been understood by us as engine manufacturers and the pressure has always been there,” he said. “Any time you burn something in an engine you produce carbon dioxide. And while in the past the pressure was not specifically about carbon dioxide, all the aircraft manufacturers have been pushing us to reduce fuel consumption.” Ironically cabonisation of the environment by the aviation industry is only 2% of the total problem.

Although the show is mainly military and airline orientated, owing to the growing demand for helicopter transport the helicopter manufacturers were well represented and selling.

Eurocopter Lutz Bertling, President and CEO of Eurocopter...