Dev Vachhani is a young intern at Jaivel Aerospace, a family business. Thanks to the MAA, we were able to have a pleasant, productive, and proactive atmosphere to exhibit our work with such priceless positioning in the hall 1 that people had no chance but to at least notice the companies exhibiting with the MAA. At Jaivel Aerospace we had an incredible airshow with us being able to reignite old relationships and create new opportunities for growth with new people. An example of which was my unprecedented meeting with a leading aerospace OEM.
For some context Jaivel aerospace are an aerospace engineering company. We specialise in aerostructures, jigs, fixtures & tooling, product design and much more. Over recent years we had co-developed a UAV. This aircraft is a logistics UAV which can carry a payload of 100kg over 1000km and was designed for humanitarian use such as during Covid it transported PPE and Vaccines to Scottish Islands or use in Antarctica as part of the British Antarctic Survey. These are some of the many use cases of the aircraft. Jaivel Aerospace exclusively manufactures the entire aircraft aerostructures.
We were invited to an evening reception event hosted at the OEMs chalet, but due to how busy the Tuesday was for us back at the stand we had arrived a little later, so we had missed the address but there were still members networking. we had settled down onto a table and my father had said to go out onto the balcony and ‘see the static display aircrafts’ and for whatever reason I interpreted that as ‘go see what the people on the balcony are doing and start a conversation’.
I made my way out onto the balcony and came across a person wearing a Eurofighter typhoon lanyard so I asked whether he had done any work on the aeroplane, he mentioned that he was given it by the aerospace OEM as their products are used in that aircraft. Then he asked what I was doing at the airshow and I had explained what we do at Jaivel Aerospace and how we were manufacturing a logistics UAV aerostructures, and luckily enough the UAV’s static display was right in front of the balcony, which help me explain our work. Stroke of luck, the person I was talking to turned out to be one of the senior leaders of the OEM and he explained to me that there could be a potential to integrate their product into the UAV and I was introduced to person in charge to setup a meeting next day.
As I had initiated the conversation and setup this meeting, my father advised me to join and introduce everyone on table at the meeting. The next day, I was incredibly nervous for when 4 o’clock was going to roll around as this was the first time in my life, I had to pitch something to someone other than my parents. The busy day at the airshow went on while I am constantly rehearsing in my mind, the approach to introduction. We arrived at the meeting and had a 45 minute conversation about how the OEM could use the aircraft and following our successful discussion, we agreed to setup an NDA and take this discussion forward. This was a huge success for me as I was able to help make the introduction and possibly a client and new use-case for the UAV.
As a first view into the world of aerospace, the Farnborough Airshow was able to provide me with insight to how networking occurs, how to communicate effectively and how a bit of courage is all you need to get your foot in the door. I had seen my colleagues’ open doors in this way but did not expect for the opportunity to do the same so soon. This was truly an experience that I will carry with me as the journey I would like for my own career takes shape. It was fantastic being on the MAA stand and representing Jaivel Aerospace throughout the week, and of course seeing the flight displays.
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