European helicopters look to take off in U.S. military market.

• Author: Beidel, Eric
• Position: Helicopters

At a helicopter exposition in Orlando last month, CEOs of European manufacturers made it clear: They are both partners and competitors of their U.S. counterparts.

European and U.S. companies often have teamed up to offer military rotorcraft. But as the call for new designs and technologies grows louder, competition from across the pond could heat up.

For years the U.S. military bought helicopters solely from domestic companies, but not anymore, said Ray Jaworowski, senior aerospace analyst at Forecast International. U.S. firms increasingly will find themselves battling against international counterparts as the military looks to field next-generation rotorcraft, he said.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"The military has made it very clear that when it comes to helicopters it is willing to go outside the U.S. for its solutions," Jaworowski said. An example, he added, would be Italy-based AugustaWestland's involvement in the program to develop a new presidential helicopter that eventually was cancelled.

European manufacturers, unlike their U.S. counterparts, have more recently been developing aircraft from scratch, Jaworowski said. While U.S. companies have focused on providing upgrades to old designs, European outfits have been producing new helicopters, he said.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

This has created a dichotomy in the U.S. military helicopter bottom line, Jaworoswki said. The U.S. product lines consist mostly of newer models of much older designs, and the military has not been procuring "clean-sheet" designs in recent years. Two exceptions are the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor and the Comanche. The latter was terminated several years ago.

"Every other rotorcraft the U.S. military is procuring are these improved derivatives," Jaworowski said, including newer versions of the Black Hawk, Chinook and Apache.

Companies overseas have been coming up with a healthier mix of offerings that include both improvements to previous helicopters and new designs, he said. "It has reached a point that when it comes to competition on the world market you have the U.S. derivatives competing against all-new European designs." This has led to concerns about the lack of innovation in the United States, Jaworowski said.

U.S. companies have been trying to come up with ideas for next-generation rotorcraft without much guidance, digging into their own pockets to fund research and development into new technologies. Sikorsky has spent about $50 million to develop a high-speed...