IPTN's N-250 plane takes part at Paris air show

IPTN's N-250 plane takes part at Paris air show

PARIS (Agencies): Few airplanes at the Paris Air Show have
traveled as far as Indonesia's IPTN N-250 twin-turboprop
passenger aircraft, and its makers contend that few can claim to
be better value.

Indonesia is the only Asian country to have aircraft on the
tarmac at the world's biggest aerospace bazaar, which opened
Saturday at Le Bourget airport.

Besides the N-250, state-owned PT Industri Pesawat Terbang
Nusantara (IPTN) has also flown all the way from Indonesia the
CN-235 transport, built jointly with Spain's CASA group.

In the exhibition halls, IPTN has also erected a mock-up cabin
and cockpit of its projected N-2130 twin-jet airliner -- a clone
of the Boeing 737 that is expected to have its first flight in
2002.

Buyers can already find similar aircraft in the West, and more
are in development in Asia, but IPTN thinks it can get a step up
on its rivals with better pricing and new technology.

"It depends on the components (ordered for each aircraft), but
roughly you can say that our competitiveness lies with the price
and the fly-by-wire systems," IPTN spokesman M. Tjahjono Satoto
told AFP.

Indonesia's Science and Technology Minister B.J. Habibie, who
is also IPTN's president, is to meet the press here today.

Habibie was quoted by Indonesia's Antara news agency as saying
at a seminar here yesterday that IPTN planned to manufacture
engines for its own aircraft to reduce its dependence on foreign
suppliers.

"This step proves that Indonesia is consistent with its
commitment to developing the aircraft industry," he pointed out
but he did not give further details.

Habibie called on French businessmen to cooperate with IPTN in
producing aircraft engines.

Accompanying Habibie in the air show will be Indonesian Air
Force Chief Marshall Sutria Tubagus, who will be a much-courted
figure among fighter-jet manufacturers after Jakarta on June 6
canceled plans to buy nine F-16s from the United States.

It did so in anger over U.S. criticism of Indonesia's human
rights record, notably in the former Portuguese colony of East
Timor.

The commander in chief of Indonesia's armed forces, General
Feisal Tanjung, is due to visit the air show on Wednesday.

France's Mirage-2000, the British Hawk 200 and Russia's Sukhoi
Su-27 have all been mooted by sources in Jakarta as potential
buys.

Built to take on the likes of Sweden's Saab 2000 or Canada's
De Havilland Dash 8, the 70-seat N-250 airliner -- powered by
U.S-made Allison 2100 engines -- is expected to sell for US$14.4
million to $16 million, Satoto said.

That compares to around $18 million for the Dash 8, a product
of the Bombardier group, he said.

Firm orders have already been placed by Garuda Indonesia and
three other Indonesian carriers, and Satoto said: "For the N-250,
we are confident that the market is domestic."

For the N-2130, however, "it's roughly 50-50" between
Indonesian and foreign orders, he added.

No price for the twin-jet N-2130 has been set yet, as it is
still in the development stages, but Satoto said it would
certainly be less than the $30 million or so that a Boeing 737
now costs off the production line.

The project is so fresh that no engine has yet been selected,
he said.

But like the N-250, the jet will use fly-by-wire technology,
whereby the ailerons, flaps, rudder and tail are controlled by
electronic impulses, rather than pulleys and cables.

Indonesia forecasts a market for 390 aircraft of the N-250's
type (100 to 130 passengers) by 2015, or -- calculated in another
fashion -- 550 in 2005 through 2525.

Promising as that might be, the numbers are dwarfed by the 995
that are expected to be sold in Canada and the United States by
2015, or 1,101 in the 2005-2525 period, according to IPTN's
estimates.

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