My Impressions: Wings India 2018 – Aviation Event in Hyderabad!

Wings India 2018(https://www.wings-india.in/) is a biennial aviation event held in Hyderabad, India. The event is an international exhibition and conference on Civil Aviation. The venue of Hyderabad is a good choice given the place is ideal for aviation (flying). Now how did I conclude that? Well, the place has 2 international standard aerodromes(VOHY &VOHS)  as many as 4 flying training organizations for civil aviation, headquarters to a regional carrier, training centre of national carrier, home base to many airlines and main training base for airforce cadets. Not to forget the weather is suitable for flying all through the year.  The venue - Begumpet airport(VOHY) is right in the centre of city with a large runway(3230m) also has a long stopway – good for landing large aircrafts(A380 landed for previous shows). Ya Ya, I am bragging about it cause I trained at this airfield 😇. But overall, it’s a great venue for such an event!

Next, the static display of aircrafts: This year the static display involved many business aircrafts (large, medium and small), Made in India aircraft, training aircrafts, glider, and chopper. The static display was extremely short on numbers. Quality though was very good among those on display. However, the arrangement of the static display aircrafts is not impressive – Needs proper placement taking all the necessary precautions.

Then, the Stalls: On display were Aircraft Manufacturers, Airlines, Training/Education Organizations, Component Manufacturers, Infrastructure Providers, Service Providers, Aviation Technology, Publishers, Government etc. For impressions: let me elaborate with respect to the type of audience. If you are an aircraft or parts manufacturer, there were few stalls to suit you. If you are an airline, there were few stalls to impress. If you are a service provider, you could talk with some of them. If you are an infrastructure provider, you could explore different ways.  If you are a pilot, there are lots of stalls to talk to. If you are an aviation enthusiast you could explore a lot. If you are an exhibiter, unless policy related, you would be disappointed. Having been to many shows though in a different domain, I could make out the audience was not up to the mark including myself 😉.

Finally the Air Show – there wasn’t any 😟. For generic audience it was a massive let down who were wowed in previous shows by aerobat teams. On retrospect, I looked at the wording of the event and there was no mention to be fair. However, that does not explain why have two days of the show, dedicated for general audience? Realistically, given the populated area surrounding the aerodrome, very high g maneuvers is not the recipe. It must be addressed though to garner good interest.

Overall, there are many positives and few negatives. It was a good balance of international and local participants (Exhibiters) though in limited numbers. The quantity could be scaled for next shows. The quality of Exhibiters was good. The quality of audience needs to be improved by having smaller events. The conferences were limited at policy level and can be improved to include all sort of audience.

P.S: I steered clear of mentioning any brand to sound neutral for this blog.