Aviation International News senior correspondent Ian Goold has been involved in aerospace since 1964 and in aviation media for more than 40 years. He enjoyed a 20-year career at Flight International magazine, where he was latterly air-transport editor before turning freelance in 1993. A winner of the European Regions Airline Association Hank McGonagle award for excellence in aerospace journalism and a Royal Aeronautical Society Aerospace Journalist of the Year global&nbsp;award, he has edited or contributed to aerospace and aviation magazines, special publications, and websites in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. Ian entered aerospace as an apprentice at the British Aircraft Corporation at Brooklands (Weybridge), where he worked on production and final assembly lines of the Vickers Super VC10, and BAC One-Eleven , and manufacture of Concorde major sub-assemblies. He subsequently graduated from the BAC Design Training School to work in the airframe structures drawing office (including design of international future projects, such as the Panavia Tornado multi-role combat aircraft) before joining Flight International in 1973. Apart from years of reading aircraft magazines and books, his first direct contact with aviation media had come during the early 1970s when he was involved at Brooklands with the Weybridge Man-powered Aircraft Group, which designed and built the tenth aircraft to fly under purely human power. As an aviation journalist, he has worked at more than&nbsp; 50 of the major biennial&nbsp;global and regional international aerospace industry shows at Le Bourget, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai (having missed attending only one "Farnborough" since 1960), plus innumerable NBAA, HAI, (U.S.) AOPA, and EBACE Conventions and ERA Assemblies. His favourite aircraft is the Hawker Hunter, of which – as a schoolboy – he heard hundreds make their first flights from Dunsfold, where also on September 24, 2013, he saw the penultimate landing of the VC10 (happily involving an example of which he had witnessed the maiden takeoff in 1970) a day before the last example made the design's final flight (unless, of course....).

Senior correspondent

Ian Goold

Continuing to reduce its reliance on oil exports through diversification, Dubai is backing a $15 billion plan to establish an aviation manufacturing and services industry to add to its portfolio. Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) will oversee six subsidiary companies that in turn are expected to address 14 related industry segments. 

The surprise announcement was made on Sunday–two days before Asian Aerospace opened. Dubai and Singapore are rivals not just as airshow venues, but also in their ambitions to be dominant aerospace hubs in their neighboring regions.

“Within ten years, DAE will become an integral part of the global industry and a leading player,” said the new group’s chairman, His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, who also heads Emirates Airline and Dubai’s civil aviation department.

DAE plans to form strategic alliances with established aerospace operators at a time when the Arab region is enjoying a period of unprecedented growth. It points out that during 2004-23 some 58 percent of widebody airliner deliveries will be made to carriers in the Middle East and Asia, while 29 percent of the world’s population live within four hours’ flying time. 

The new company will begin by addressing the airport, aircraft finance, and aerospace education and training sectors. DAE intends to&nbsp; develop maintenance, repair and overhaul businesses before 2007. Also in DAE’s sights are opportunities in component and engine manufacturing, space services, aircraft brokerage, aviation information technology, and aviation media and events.

The new enterprise will focus on airport development in India and China. Finance and leasing activity will address widebody requirements, and university and research-and-development facilities will offer degrees and apprenticeships.

Joining the government in backing DAE are financial concerns Dubai International Capital, Emaar Properties, Istithmar, Dubai International Finance Centre, AMLAK Finance and Dubai Airport Free Zone Authority.

Dubai backing $15 billion aero service industry

Continuing to reduce its reliance on oil exports through diversification, Dubai is backing a $15 billion plan to establish an aviation manufacturing and se

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