Show Report Aero India 2011
anoop Kamath
On Display: the level of participation by the (top to Bottom) aerospace industry of this tiny naEurofighter Typhoon; eurocopter’s Fennec; tion. With JVs with Tata and Nova Mahindra ga8 Airvan; already in place, IAI is seeking new and cessna’s propjet partnerships in the civil, government and defence sectors in India. On display at the Israeli Pavilion were models of special mission aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles along with ground control stations, Elta multi-mission radar, electro-optical, electronic intelligence and COMINT payloads and weapons systems. On display were the 65-kg Panther and 12-kg Mini Panther UAVs employing the revolutionary three tilting propellers driven by low noise electrical motors
22 SP’S AVIATION Issue 3 • 2011
wg cdr (Retd) R.S. Chauhan
He is Gelu Nitu, a commercial pilot from France, but Indians prefer to call him by his second name Nitu and so he is Nitu Gelu in India. Nitu was an instructor with FlightSafety International for 19 years and has flown almost all Falcon aircraft. And today, he takes to the air with GVK Group’s business jet, the Falcon 2000. Nitu was born in Romania and his father was an Air Force pilot who flew the MiG-19. But Nitu chose to be a commercial pilot and has flown several aircraft since 1975. He has over 12,000 hours of flying experience in Middle East, Africa, UK, India, etc and prior to joining the GVK Group, he was with the Taj Air, coaching how to fly the Falcon 2000. Stationed in Mumbai, Nitu races towards Begumpet in Hyderabad with the Falcon 2000, as and when Chairman G.V.K. Reddy has to go on a business trip. In a chit-chat with SP’s during Aero India 2011, the pilot said he has already had 1,200 hours of flying experience in the Falcon 2000 he now takes to the air. “When our Chairman is abroad, there are others in the top brass of the company who fly,” says Nitu. Besides the superb interiors, the passenger seating space in the Falcon 2000DX is aptly designed for meetings as well as entertainment and sleep. The Falcon 2000DX gives wide-cabin comfort and 3,250 range of a larger jet while still enjoying the short-runway agility and fuel economy of a much smaller plane. Powered with PW308C engine, the 2000DX can land with nearly a full fuel tank and is thus flexible enough to hop from city to city and leap across the continent without having to stop and refuel. •
Photographs: anoop Kamath
Flying GVK’s Falcon 2000
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