Engines
Dubai Airshow Report: Middle East Show Draws $50 Billion in Orders
For most of the past decade at least, the Dubai Air Shows have been impressive if a little predictable in the magnitude of the business trumpeted during th
Dubai Air Show 2011 (David McIntosh)
Dubai Air Show 2011 (David McIntosh)

For most of the past decade at least, the Dubai Air Shows have been impressive if a little predictable in the magnitude of the business trumpeted during the biennial events. The message from the Middle East’s aerospace and defense sectors was essentially, “We’ve arrived and for us the only way is up.”

The first sign that such certainty was shaken came barely a week after the 2009 show, when Dubai finally had to come clean that large parts of its real estate-based economy were figuratively built on sand. A bail-out from Abu Dhabi, its neighbor in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has stabilized Dubai to a degree.