Aerospace major EADS establishes R&D facility at Bangalore

Bangalore/New Delhi: Aiming to ramp up the capacities of India's defence manufacturing industry, European aerospace major EADS has established a military R&D facility at Bangalore to take forward the group's existing projects and work on new programmes.
"We have just started. Within two years, we hope to employ 200 engineers at the centre. If you consider that we employ 2,000 R&D engineers, this means that within two years, 10 percent of our R&D work will be conducted at Bangalore," Bernhard Gerwert, CEO (Military Air Systems) of EADS Defence and Security, said.
"We are working with Indian industry for developing its skills. This is because it is important for us to show our commitment to India," Gerwert, who is here for the biannual DefExpo land and naval systems exhibition, told IANS in an interview.
The centre is independent of the Eurofighter Typhoon, which the group produces and which is one of the six combat jets contending for an Indian Air Force (IAF) order for 126 aircraft, he added.
"The impact (of the R&D centre) for India is tremendous. The Eurofighter is just going into operation. There will be further enhancements for the next 20-30 years. Automatically, the Indian industry will be part of the programme," Gerwert noted.
In this context, he pointed out that the Eurofighter programme was supported by 400 main supplies and collectively employed 100,000 people.
17/02/10 IANS/Mangalorean.com

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Categories: Foreign Feb 2010, Indian Aviation- In General Feb 2010