We have a bird’s eye view from the Sentiment Metrics office of the Farnborough Airshow – literally.  All is quiet and then the Airbus A380 flies past the window, Eurofighters, the Red Arrows.  We’ve seen some pretty impressive arial acrobatics in the past few days.

It’s planespotter heaven and fun for us.  But, there is a very serious side to the show and billion-dollar deals are being signed a few hundred metres from us at the iconic global aviation event.  Analysts are looking to the show to gauge the health of the aerospace and defence industries.

The first buzz around the event focussed on the debut of the much-anticipated Boeing 787 Dreamliner which is light and fuel-efficient.  It arrived at the show on Saturday.

In the first few days, there’s been a degree of optimism about a recovery in the industry which has been severely hit by the recession.  The signs that confidence has returned to aerospace are there.  Boeing Commercial Airplanes president Jim Albaugh says that the market:”has come back faster than we expected,” (The Scotsman 20/7).  Boeing has twice raised its forecast for orders and Airbus also reported a strong first day and a buoyant order book.  It announced a deal for 51 A320 jets from Air Lease Corporation, valued at $4.4bn.

So far, there has been £19.6bn worth of commercial orders. These included: Emirates which placed an order for 12 Boeing 777s worth $3.6bn and Aeroflot signed up for 11 Airbus A330-300 aircraft worth $1.7bn. FlyBe also announced a £850m order for 35 Embraer 175 jets to facilitate its expansion into Western Europe.

Today it’s military firepower and with a warning that defence procurement budgets will be cut – all eyes will be firmly focussed on a small airfield in Hampshire.