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U.S. helicopter market adapts to new reality

It's the new reality facing the U.S. military and, by extension, the industry that designs and builds helicopters for it.

With
its overseas wars winding down, a flat defense budget and a strong
likelihood of a big funding cut come Jan. 1, the Army — and to a lesser
extent the Marines — are not going to be buying many new helicopters
going forward. And the money they do have will be spent keeping the old
ones flying a lot longer.

Army Maj. Gen. Tom Crosby, the executive
officer overseeing the service's aviation programs, showed a chart
depicting his $7.8 billion budget for fiscal 2012. That figure includes
pretty much everything from new helicopters to screws and bolts.

"Anybody
see that going up? Not me," Crosby said, referring to a defense budget
that got trimmed this year and could get whacked by nearly another $50
billion in January.

The helicopter society is largely made up of
industry and academic engineering gurus who dream up new and ostensibly
better helicopters and technology to transport soldiers, civilians and
supplies.

It's a group that looks to the future, to new technology
developments and aircraft programs, plans that typically consume
bundles of taxpayer dollars.

That money, Crosby and others warned, is probably not going to be available anytime soon.

The
Army has its wants and needs, including a new light scout helicopter
that the industry has been jockeying to compete for. Eurocopter and
Lockheed Martin have joined forces to build prototypes for testing, as
has Bell Helicopter. Sikorsky is planning to build two all-new
prototypes with its X2 high-speed technology.

With lots of
lobbying from the helicopter makers, the Army is planning to hold a
demonstration to see what the companies can offer, but Crosby isn't
optimistic that he can buy any of it.

"As much as I want and need a new armed scout," Crosby said, "it's unaffordable."

The
Marines are in a little better shape than the Army, or at least they
think they are. Marine officers touted their plans for future purchases
of the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey and Bell's UH-1Y and AH-1Z helicopters.

But
the Pentagon has already cut planned V-22 purchases from 2013 through
2017, and that's before the looming January cuts. And even the Marines
and their Navy bosses emphasized that money is tight and industry needs
to do a better job of providing spare parts and upgrades that last
longer and cost less.

Troy Gaffey, president of AVX Aircraft of
Fort Worth, sees the affordability push as a positive for his company's
proposal to refit the Army's aging OH-58D scout helicopters with new
rotor systems.

The Army will likely have money for continued
upgrades and modifications, if not for new helicopters. The AVX plan
would dramatically boost performance and improve safety at low cost,
Gaffey said.

Similarly, Eurocopter Chief Executive Lutz Bertling
touts the company's X3 helicopter technology now being tested as a
lower-cost way to boost speed and productivity compared to the
tilt-rotor technology used in the V-22.

The big target for the
future is the Army's plan for a new generation of helicopters that it
hopes to have money to fund later this decade. They would fly farther,
faster and carry more.

But given the current trajectory of
development and manufacturing costs and the Army's desired requirements,
one industry executive warned that those aircraft would be — wait —
unaffordable.

Does anybody really think, Sikorsky President Jeff
Pino said, that the Army will be willing or able to pay $60 million to
replace the Black Hawk helicopters it's now buying for $18 million?

As
he has done for several years now, Pino urged his colleagues to invest
more of their own money to develop the technology and aircraft for the
future rather than waiting for the Pentagon to spend money.