According to a published report from the Paris Air Show last week, Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. President Jeff Pino said he asked Pentagon officials to consider pairing Sikorsky with Lockheed Martin Corp. to build a fleet of presidential helicopters.
The U.S. government killed the presidential helicopter program this year after cost-overruns by Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin, which beat out Stratford-based Sikorsky in 2005 for the $7 billion contract.
“It should be clear to them we would work with them, but I have not had any specific conversations,” Pino told the Wall Street Journal.
Fairfield County”™s largest employer announced a small flurry of deals leading into the biennial Paris Air Show, including plans to produce helicopter cabins in India and avionics systems in Milwaukee.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation took delivery of a Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk, becoming the first nonmilitary agency in the U.S. government to begin using the utility helicopter.
Sikorsky also provided additional details on plans to sell an armed version of its Black Hawk platform dubbed Battle Hawk, outfitted with a 20-millimeter cannon, in partnership with Israel-based Elbit Systems Ltd. The governments of Israel and Australia are considering purchasing the helicopter.
Rival manufacturers warned of slowing business in the coming year, however, with the Eurocopter division of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. saying this month that government orders are dropping in the recession. Sikorsky”™s Hartford-based parent United Technologies Corp. affirmed its previous $55 billion sales forecast for 2009.
Separately, a U.S. House of Representatives committee ordered $3.5 billion in cuts from President Obama”™s budget for the Department of Defense, with possible ramifications for Sikorsky and other military contractors in Connecticut.
The House Appropriations Committee recommended the cuts in advance of the Pentagon releasing its itemized budget next month. The federal fiscal year begins October 1.
The president”™s fiscal 2010 budget includes nearly $1 billion for 24 Seahawk helicopters equipped for antisubmarine and surface combat; just under $500 million for 18 armed Seahawk helicopters produced by Sikorsky, which the Navy is forming into carrier-based strike forces; and more than $550 million for continued development of the CH-53K heavy-lift helicopter Sikorsky is developing for the Marine Corps, which faces a critical design review in the coming year.
In testimony last month before the House Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the Pentagon will spend an additional $500 million this year to field and maintain helicopters, an urgent need in the Afghanistan theater. Gates added that the military”™s primary limitation on helicopter capacity is in pilots and crews, not aircraft, and said future programs must embrace aircraft that can be used by multiple military branches.
“While the military has made great strides in operating jointly over the past two decades, procurement remains overwhelmingly service-centric,” Gates said. “The combat search-and-rescue helicopter, for example, had major development and cost problems to be sure; but what cemented my decision to cancel this program was the fact that we were on the verge of launching yet another single-service platform for a mission that in the real world is truly joint. This is a question we must consider for all of the services”™ modernization portfolios.”
