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CNN Live Saturday

International Competition Heats Up in Aviation Business

Aired June 16, 2001 - 16:25   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: The sky over France is a dazzling display of aviation hardware. Today the world's largest air show opened with exhibits from 42 countries and hundreds of civilian and military aircraft.

As CNN's Jim Bittermann explains, all that dazzle was not just for show.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As fast as the speed of sound or as lumbering as a whale, without wings or with -- an example of virtually ever sort of man-made flying object is on display, and for sale, at the world's largest aircraft show outside Paris.

If you like big, there is the biggest: The 600 ton Antonov, as long as a football field, as tall as a five-story building.

If you like small, there is the hand-held micro-unmanned aerial vehicle, with its five-gram military spy camera.

RON FRYE, SYMETRICS INDUSTRIES: In an urban environment, you can send the aircraft out from the troops, out ahead of them, they can see enemies and then they could send those images back.

BITTERMANN: In fact, remotely controlled pilotless aircraft are among the highlights of this year's show. None more sophisticated or larger than Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk which, with no humans at the controls, can be programed to automatically fly halfway around the world without a pit stop.

It's such high-tech feats that impress many of the delegations of potential buyers at the show. The air marshal from Pakistan said technological developments were reason enough to be here.

AIR MARSHAL MUSAF ALI MIR, PAKISTAN AIR FORCE: Aviation is a very dynamic field, and we are just looking for some new technologies over here, how the thing being developed in the aviation industry.

BITTERMANN (on camera): While many suggest that gee-whiz technological developments are key to the future of aviation, it's evident, especially at a show like this, that almost equally important is the ability of aerospace manufacturers to sell their new ideas. (voice-over): And that is, without question, another trend at du Bourget this year. The tough competition, especially from Europeans, in an industry long dominated by the United States.

The U.S. commerce secretary had no doubt about his role here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Selling America, selling American products, selling American technology.

BITTERMANN: But Europeans with new plans for both civil and military aircraft have sales idea of their own. A newly designed military transport plane is expected to be at the heart of Europe's plans for a rapid reaction force, and is symbolic of the continent's growing independence commercially, politically, and militarily.

Some see it positively.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's good for the development; it's good for the technology development, it's good for the economic development, and it's also good for new types of corporations.

BITTERMANN: Still, others say that transatlantic competition has raised tensions in the aircraft industry as never before.

Not far from the gigantic Antonov, barely noticed amid all the flashy aerospace hardware, is a plaque embedded in the du Bourget tarmac marking the spot where Charles Lindbergh landed after making the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Clearly, much has changed in the aviation business in the less-than 75 years since. But that drive to be the first, to win, seems to have changed little at all.

Jim Bittermann, CNN, du Bourget, France.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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