On the Record with
JEFF PINO, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF MARKETING AND COMMERCIAL PROGRAMS, SIKORSKY AIRCRAFT

Government Business Bolsters Civil Side

Providing thousands of helicopters to the U.S. military (and supporting them) is a high-margin business that allows Sikorsky to continue to give good value in the civil sector, where annual deliveries number in the mere dozens.

So says Jeff Pino, the new senior vice president in charge of all company marketing as well as the commercial operations side of Sikorsky Aircraft.

Pino was a career man at Bell Helicopter until, in the words of a Sikorsky spokesperson, "we stole him" earlier this year.

"Sikorsky is absolutely committed to the civil market," Pino told Show News on the eve of Orlando. "Having a strong U.S. government business is really the way to go about it."

The government activity, Pino says, "allows us to do things like spend lots of dollars to develop a new 19-place civil helicopter." He refers to the S-92, of which three are in flight tests, with some 1,400 hours logged, and which is slated for certification late this year with first deliveries in early 2004.

Sikorsky is here with an S-76, its current flagship, a $7 million twin that can carry eight passengers (with two in front) in executive configuration. Sikorsky has historically delivered between 12 and 15 S-76s per year, and for 2002 expects to be "on the high side of that," according to Pino.

"Surprisingly," he says, "We haven't seen really much of a downfall in business this year." The continued strength has been evident both in new sales and the aftermarket, he says.

Pino reports a planned increase in S-76 production at the Sikorsky plant in Stratford, Conn., and says that future enhancements to the aircraft may include a boost to its Turbomeca Arriel 2S2 engines so as to be able to add an extra passenger, noise reductions both inside and outside the aircraft, and all-weather capability, including deicing.

Deicing will be standard on the $15 million S-92, which is to be Sikorsky's new flagship. The aircraft will have CT7-8 engines from GE and a Rockwell Collins cockpit.

Sikorsky has already invested more than a decade in S-92 development, including major structural changes, resulting in a bigger cabin, that have now been fully incorporated into the program. Following initial certification expected later this year, the firm will spend 2003 refining (and certifying) various options to be offered to the executive market. Interior furnishings, Pino promises, will be "absolutely at the whim of the corporate customer." Deliveries are to start in the first quarter of 2004.

S-92 production partners include Brazil's Embraer, China's Jingdezhen Helicopter, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan, Spain's Gamesa, and Taiwan's AIDC. Final S-92 assembly, Pino says, may ultimately take place at Sikorsky's new RAH-64 Comanche factory in Bridgeport, Conn.

The S-92 (and its cousin, the H-92 military variant) are based on Sikorsky's Blackhawk and Seahawk military birds. But Pino insists that technology from the civil side, like the active vibration controls in the S-92, involving computerized sensors and tuned pendulums to counter the inevitable shakes and jostles of rotor-wing flight, may find their way onto military aircraft as well.

"It's not a one-way street," he says of the flow of know-how between the two sides of the business. "There's a nice roadway there with traffic in both directions." -Rich Piellisch

A Very Freak Lightning Strike
"The failure of the blade was attributed to a very freak lightning strike in 1999," says Sikorsky's Jeff Pino, reporting a conclusion of company and U.K. investigators into the July crash of an S-76 helicopter that killed 11 at Great Yarmouth while taking workers to an offshore oil rig.

"It's not a new production issue," Pino told Show News prior to NBAA 2002, stressing that investigators are now trying to determine exactly how lightning damage could develop into a critical spar failure years later.

Customers have been asked to perform special inspections of aircraft that may have been similarly damaged by lightning, Pino says.

"This is a fleet that historically has a tremendous safety record," he says. "It was a tragic accident, and our hearts go out to everybody concerned."