IPTN undeterred by mergers of giant firms

By Endy M. Bayuni

PARIS (JP): PT IPTN President B.J. Habibie said yesterday he was confident about the future of Indonesia's aircraft industry in spite of planned mergers of the world's giant plane makers.

"I see no problem," Habibie told a packed media conference in the ongoing Paris Air Show at Le Bourget airport.

Habibie, who is here to showcase the products of PT Industri Pesawat Terbang Nusantara (IPTN), said the merger between Boeing and McDonnel Douglas or the planned restructuring of Airbus were understandable given the nature of the industry.

The mergers, lurking at the background of the current airshow, have raised the prospects of a global aviation industry dominated by two giant firms.

Habibie however said there would be a place for IPTN and that the various cooperation programs that his company has had with the industry's giants would continue.

"We have had excellent cooperation with Boeing, McDonnel Douglas and Lockheed Martin.

"There will be no impact. On the contrary, if before we had to deal with three (companies), now we only need to concentrate with one," he said in referring to the planned mergers between the giant aerospace companies.

Habibie played to a packed press conference here to formally present the N-250, the first wholly-Indonesian designed aircraft and also the first commercial airplane in its class to use the fly-by-wire system.

Recalling that 10 years ago here he announced IPTN's plan to produce a modern airplane by 1997, he said: "We've kept to our schedule, and we've kept our promise."

The first N-250, nicknamed Gatotkoco, is in Le Bourget making daily display flight along with a host of other new planes, civilian and military.

Habibie touted the plane as a reliable, sophisticated and low- cost aircraft.

The military version of the CN-235 plane, manufactured under a joint venture with CASA of Spain, is also here to take part in the display.

Habibie explained in detail IPTN's plan to build its first jet, the N-2130, a regional commuter plane capable of carrying between 100 and 130 passengers, which he hoped to start flying in 2002. "It will fly here in Le Bourget in 2003," he promised.

On N-250, Habibie said he hoped to obtain the Indonesian certificate of airworthiness based on the second prototype, Kerincingwisi in March 1999, and the certification from the Joint Airworthiness Authority (based in Europe) a month later and then three months after, from the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority.

Habibie said the certification process with the U.S. government would have been faster had Indonesia established bilateral cooperation with the United States on airworthiness.

"This is a government to government affair and we're working on that now," said Habibie, who is also the State Minister of Research and Technology.

Given the experience with N-250, Habibie is confident that the certification process for the N-2130 would be faster.

Habibie cited an anecdote of how in 1965, then a student in Germany, he saved up enough money to come to the airshow, by bus, and then could not even afford a decent accommodation and lunch was restricted to apple and bread.

He then told a German friend that he had a dream of ever returning here to see the first Indonesia-designed plane, and that he would be honored to be one of the engineers.

"Man plans but God decides," he said.

"Forty-two years later I came back. Not (as someone who) designed a landing gear, but to be honored to have the privilege to create people in Indonesia who are in a position to understand science and technology, to further develop and apply science and technology, and to become experts, like the engineers.

Proud, he said, is not the right expression for it sounds egocentrical.

"I thank to God that on Friday, I entered here not by bus, but by landing on my own plane coming from Indonesia," he said, to a loud applause from the audience.

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