Big deals for Sikorsky, GE at U.K. air show

In the space of a month, Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. secured contracts totaling more than $12 billion, a windfall even as its new president Mick Maurer reiterated that the manufacturer will be impacted by a steady decline in U.S. defense spending.

An Air Force pararescueman climbs a rope ladder back into an HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter during a tactical training mission at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. Credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Camilla Griffin.

Separately, a spinout from an Austrian company won an inaugural entrepreneurial challenge sponsored by Sikorsky and will take up residence at the Stamford Innovation Center that houses a Sikorsky incubator.

Pankl Aerospace Innovations will work on new rotor blades, getting a year”™s free rent in Stamford as part of the award and possibly an equity investment from Sikorsky down the road. The technology originated at a Pankl Racing Systems AG subsidiary in Cerritos, Calif.

Sikorsky also will work with Ontario-based Smart Rotor Systems Inc. and with Stamford designer Drew Lambert.

Sikorsky is a subsidiary of Hartford-based United Technologies Corp. (UTC) and is Fairfield County”™s largest employer. Its Stratford headquarters is Connecticut”™s largest manufacturing plant. UTC is scheduled to release its second-quarter earnings in the final week of July.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)signed an $8.5 billion contract with Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. for more than 650 new Black Hawk and Seahawk helicopters through 2017.

Separately, the government of Qatar committed to spending $3.6 billion on 34 Black Hawk and Seahawk helicopters equipped with engines from the GE Aviation division of Fairfield-based General Electric Co., with an option for six more aircraft.

Canada, meanwhile, promised a “significant” fine on Sikorsky for ongoing delays in delivering new Cyclone maritime helicopters, a contract that is becoming an albatross due to glitches in mission software installed on the aircraft.

In an entirely different software gaffe, UTC last month was penalized to the tune of $55 million to settle federal charges it violated export controls in selling restricted technology to China in the form of helicopter engine control software.

Sikorsky was not implicated, with the deal involving engine control software from Hamilton Sundstrand used for helicopter engines produced by Pratt & Whitney Canada.

Under the deal, Hartford-based UTC said it would invest $20 million in compliance programs as part of the agreement, adding it has already spent $30 million since 2006 to “strengthen its compliance infrastructure,” in its words.

The new DOD deal could escalate to as high as $11.7 billion depending on military needs over the next five years and include some aircraft that will likely be earmarked for sale to U.S. allies.

It was one of a small flurry of announcements Sikorsky and UTC made this month at the Farnborough Airshow in the United Kingdom, along with GE, whose GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) unit in Stamford committed to buying 100 jets from Boeing Co., with plans to lease them to airliners.

GECAS has a fleet of more than 1,700 owned and managed aircraft with approximately 235 airlines in more than 75 countries. Late last month, GECAS announced a contract to lease 10 Boeing 737-800s to China Southern Airlines, with those aircraft already on order from Boeing.