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Farnborough Airshow: Where IT Meets Top Gun

It's Tuesday, the second day of the U.K.'s massive Farnborough Airshow. The only thing hotter than the molten, 90-plus degree heat on the tarmac is the scorching flybys by some of the world's most advanced military and civilian aircraft. But these days, it takes more than wings to keep these birds in the air.

My tour of the exhibit halls here revealed that aviation and aerospace are industries with IT in their DNA. IBM, EDS, and even offshore players like TCS and Satyam have booths. It's probably no surprise to anyone that aeronautics relies on high tech, but what's less obvious is the type of technology that's going to be most important to airlines and air forces in the future.

The aircraft themselves are about as advanced as they can get without becoming space vehicles. Modern-day fighter jets--like the F-16 I just watched enter and recover from an improbable stall angle--can already fly faster than the limits of human endurance. On the civilian side, Airbus' A380 has yet to prove that bigger is better. (Though the one I've just witnessed performing tight spirals over Farnborough was pretty darned impressive--Lou Gerstner was right, elephants can dance.)

The next big step for aviation and aerospace is to get all their assets working together--and that's where IT comes in. "It's about creating a networked ecosystem," says Joan Davies, VP for Aerospace and Defense at EDS, who's here at the show. EDS is working to help airline customers create ERP systems that transcend the back office and extend to maintenance operations, flight dispatch, and even the aircraft itself. That way, mechanics would know right away about an in-flight maintenance problem and be ready on the ground with the right parts and tools to fix it.

On the defense side, networking will become more important as weapons systems become less manpower-dependent and more computer-driven. Parked on the ramp here are a few examples of the pilotless drones that are increasingly being used to prosecute the war on terror. Boeing CEO Jim McNerney told CNBC yesterday that for defense contractors, it's no longer just about the weapons platforms; it's about getting them to talk to each other. That could put Boeing--anxious to build out its defense integration business--on the hunt for a company like CSC.

F-16s are sexy, middleware isn't--but the latter is going to play just as big a role in hunting down the bad guys if the exhibitor list at Farnborough is any indication.

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