Paris Air Show a Spectacular Showcase to Market Planes

The 10-day Paris air show, which closed Sunday, is a marketplace so spectacular and expensive that the item attracting the most wide-eyed wonder this year was the U.S. Air Force’s $280-million B-1B bomber, which no one else can afford to buy, and the bargain raising the most eyebrows was the Soviet Union’s offer to launch anyone’s satellite into space for a mere $30 million.

France, which more than a half-century ago regarded itself as the aviation leader of the world and now regards itself as the second air power in the West after the United States, has been hosting air shows since the infancy of aviation in 1909. Its air show, now held every second year at the old Le Bourget airport, where Charles A. Lindbergh landed after his solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, is the largest and most important in the world.

More than 1,400 exhibitors from 31 countries showed their wares this year, and visitors were treated to dazzling demonstrations of aircraft such as the British-American Harrier GR5 fighter that can stop in mid-air and descend vertically to a landing site, the new Airbus Industrie A320 airliner that France hopes will challenge Boeing’s dominance of the commercial market, the French Mirage-4OOO jet fighter that has managed few sales and Italy’s futuristic Piaggio executive plane.

A host of stationary exhibits was also on view, such as French-made Aerospatiale Exocet missiles similar to the one used by an Iraqi warplane to attack the U.S. guided-missile frigate Stark in the Persian Gulf in May, killing 37 American sailors. The European Space Agency is also showing for the first time a mock-up of the Hermes space shuttle that it hopes to launch in the 1990s.

In all, total attendance at the show is estimated to have been 350,000. The total would have been higher if the organizers had not closed the show to the general public on weekdays, restricting it then to exhibitors and their guests.

The show is not just a show. Although it is not clear just how much, a good deal of marketing goes on. Budgetary problems prompted both U.S. government agencies and private companies to cut back on their presence at the air show this year, but there is no doubt that the American aerospace industries treat the show as a serious marketplace.

“I get the impression,” said Donald A. Poland, director of international communications for Rockwell International of Pittsburgh, “that there really is business going on. All the chalets at the airport are jammed with people in conference rooms.”

One of the most businesslike sales pitches came from the Soviet government. It is trying to fill the West’s gap in satellite launchings caused by the explosion of the U.S. space shuttle Challenger in January, 1986, and the more recent failures of Europe’s Ariane space launching program.

Soviets Tout Capabilities

At a news conference during the air show, Soviet officials said they had seven vehicles capable of launching a satellite. Over the years, they went on, the program has seen 98 successful launchings and only nine failures.

The price for a Soviet launch, depending on the size of the satellite, would average $30 million, the officials said, about two-thirds the cost for space on an Ariane rocket and half the cost that private American firms are expected to charge once they get into the business of launching satellites.

The Soviet officials acknowledged that their price was intended as an introductory bargain. “We might vary the price upward later,” said Valery Ignatov, a Soviet foreign trade official. “That’s business.”

So far, only India has contracted for the Soviets to launch a satellite. A big problem for the Soviet Union is the refusal of the U.S. government to license American companies to ship satellites to the Soviet Union. This refusal, according to American officials, is based on fears that the Soviets will try to steal some of the technology in the satellites.

To alleviate this fear, Soviet officials pledged that foreign technicians could escort their satellites all the way to the launching pad and ensure that no one unauthorized gets near it.

Asked if he believed that the American government could be persuaded to accept this guarantee, Ignatov replied: “We can only hope.” But he insisted that profits were his government’s only interest.

“We are only presenting our possibilities,” he said, “as a normal commercial enterprise. If the customer is interested, it is up to him.”

Subtle Salesmanship

A lot of the salesmanship at the show is indirect.

“If you are Rockwell International and come to the show, you have to look like Rockwell International,” Poland said, trying to explain why his company had two exhibit stands and two chalets to entertain customers and reporters.

Poland said that many of the customers invited to the show were not customers of Rockwell’s aerospace division at all. Instead, they were customers for the axles, brakes and other components produced by Rockwell for trucks and other automotive vehicles.

“The show is an opportunity for our automotive division to impress (its) customers with the display of some wonderful airplanes,” he said.

Rockwell International also basked in the attention paid to the B-1B strategic bomber, built by Rockwell but brought to the show by the Air Force. Rockwell is scheduled to deliver the last of the 100 B-1Bs to the Air Force next year.

Poland said he was sure the attention would help Rockwell. “When that (B-1B bomber) program ends in 1988,” he said, “we will be looking around for other work to do.”

However, the bomber had its problems at the air show. When it was time for it to return to Dyess Air Force Base, Tex., engineers were unable to start the electrical system because of an incompatibility between the bomber’s current and the supply available at Le Bourget. An alternate electrical source was flown to Le Bourget from an American air base in Europe, and the B-1B took off for home a day late.

Part of Auto Show

The first Paris air show was not a separate show at all. It was no more than a section called “the international exhibition of aerial locomotion” in the Paris auto show at the Grand Palais in downtown Paris in 1909. By the next year, however, airplanes had their own show.

The shows were suspended during both World Wars I and II but were resumed in each post-war period. In 1949, the organizers, in addition to the regular exhibitions in the Grand Palais, presented flights over Orly airport south of Paris.

In 1953, the entire show, exhibitions and flights, were moved from the Grand Palais to the old airport at Le Bourget. In 1963, the show entered the space age by changing its name from the International Aeronautic Show to the International Aeronautic and Space Show.