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Jason Ford
Jason Ford
News Editor
Fox jets off to Delhi
Liam Fox is in Delhi this week promoting the Typhoon multi-role combat aircraft in a bid to secure a £7bn contract with the Indian Air Force.
According to a report in The Sunday Times, India would be offered the technical blueprint of the jets - including access to computer source codes - and the jets would be built on the sub-continent also.
Fox will be followed by the Russian and French premiers, who are attempting to sell the MiG-35 and the Rafale respectively.
A decision on the contract is expected next year.
Friday sees the launch of Avanti Communications’ Hylas 1 satellite in French Guiana.
Hitching a ride on an Ariane 5 launch vehicle, the satellite will be able to offer high-speed internet access to the estimated 10 per cent of the country where next-generation internet networks have been deemed too uneconomical to install beyond 2015.
Still with computing and news that the very first Apple computer is to be sold at Christies tomorrow.
The Apple-1 is said to be one of only 200 computer models hand made by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs.
The computer, estimated to sell for between £100,000 and £150,000, was released in the summer of 1976 with a devilish retail price of $666.66.
The computer was sold without casing, power supply, keyboard or monitor but it did come with a pre-assembled motherboard, which was considered a major step forward at the time.
Energy is on the agenda this week at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel and Conference Centre, London, where conferences are taking place that will discuss issues in renewable, waste and nuclear power.
The renewables conference has a full agenda that includes assessing both the practical plans and potential of the Green Investment Bank and the impact of feed-in tariffs, analysing the costs versus benefits of wind-energy projects and considering the potential of distributed energy.
Over in the nuclear conference, delegates will look at the latest research and technologies to increase safety and security, and will discuss how to develop the most effective and secure nuclear waste management plans for nuclear stations in the UK.
Energy from waste will look at the opportunities and challenges in adopting CHP with energy from waste, review biomass to energy projects, and consider planning energy from waste projects under the new government.
The LA Motor Show is now in full swing and making its world debut is the Mitsubishi i-MiEV. Set for a UK launch in January 2011, the all-electric i-MiEV has been involved in UK government trials since mid-December 2009, testing the i-MiEV against typical UK urban usage.
The i-MiEV and its EV and hybrid brethren might be well be on the agenda at ‘The futures of the city: towards sustainable urban environment and mobility’, which is taking place in Amsterdam this week.
The organisers say they will gather transport and urban development experts to map, among many things, the problems and challenges regarding the built urban environment and urban mobility.
Is the future of urban transport all-electric? Let us know your thoughts.
Readers' comments (8)
Tony Mueller | 22 Nov 2010 1:29 pm
Great how & what the Indien Gvrnmt.
is planing for the Future 2010+ plus!!
rgds Tony Mueller.
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Paul | 22 Nov 2010 1:41 pm
Great lets sell them one of the best planes around at the moment. But hey do we really need to give away all our technical know how,and why are we not building them here ? Lets look after our manufacturing by god we need to.
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Paul | 22 Nov 2010 1:41 pm
Great lets sell them one of the best planes around at the moment. But hey do we really need to give away all our technical know how,and why are we not building them here ? Lets look after our manufacturing by god we need to.
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Stephen Mosley | 22 Nov 2010 2:54 pm
I can see two possible reasons for selling the complete technical information with Typhoon. The first is that there is an as yet undisclosed programme that will result in an aircraft far superior to Typhoon in every respect and therefore the government is making as much money as it can from soon to be obsolete technology. The second is that its getting absolutely all the money it can without any regard to the longevity of our aerospace industry, seeing the sacrifice of it as being entirely acceptable. Would anyone care to take any bets as to which is closest to the truth? I may be missing something here but I think this also shows a stark contrast with how goverments deal with different sectors. In December 2009 the cost of the bank bailout was given as £850bn, effectively protecting the financial industry from their own failure. Now we have a product of our aerospace industry that stands as one of the finest in the world and we have to give away the highly desirable secrets of its success, effectively penalising the aerospace industry for being so good.
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Steve K | 23 Nov 2010 8:12 am
And yet more valuable manufacturing jobs are lot to the UK.
Whats the likelihood the Indians will pay cash on the nail for this information ?
More likely they will be given it as part of our Foreign Aid package, foreign aid to a nation that has nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, complete with aircraft (more than we can say) and a Space Programme. Its about time all "The Engineer" readers wrote to their MP's to put an end to this foreign aid nonsense.
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parthvader | 26 Nov 2010 7:00 pm
'More likely they will be given it as part of our Foreign Aid package, foreign aid to a nation that has nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, complete with aircraft (more than we can say) and a Space Programme.'
I think the words, '£7 billion contract' had no effect on you.
The tender for 126-200 M-MRCA put forward by the Government of India has an offsets clause that REQUIRES the jet to be built in India as well as transfer of technology. If Eurofighter doesnt do that, either of the F-16IN Super Viper, F/A-18IN Super Hornet, SAAB Gripen NG or the three mentioned in the articles will get the contract and you will loose $12 billion.
And Eurofighter is NOT made by UK alone!
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parthvader | 26 Nov 2010 7:07 pm
Eurofighter is offering all the know how because that way it has more chances of winning the contract.
Eurofighter Typhoon is a remarkable aircraft, but it's not the best. In fact there are better aircraft one can buy for cheaper. And the Indian tender has lots of competition from the French, Americans, Swedes and Russians.
As for TOT, India already manufactures the Hawk trainer and its Rolls Royce Adour Mk821 engines. It has manufactures SEPECAT Jaguar and Folland Gnat aircraft in the past. It now manufactures the Su-30MKI which is very advanced aircraft. Trust me, they don't need to beg anyone for technology.
The TOT clause is to ensure they have full control of the technology handed to them. So they can build on it in the future instead of paying BAE systems for copyright clearances.
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Steve Kerr | 8 Dec 2010 3:15 pm
Still does not negate the fact that India receives Billions of £ in foreign Aid for starving people when they have a huge military budget. No wonder they can afford to buy military kit like this, the British taxpayer is subsidising them! A nation that can afford , but decides not to, to feed or provide decent sanitary conditions for all its population have no justification for holding out the begging bowl and then spending money on luxuries like aircraft carriers and nulear weapons .
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