An ebullient Sikorsky Boss, Jeffrey Pino, talked up the future
of Sikorsky with all the pride and enthusiasm of a new Father. Pino
noted that the company could be positioned to become the world's
biggest helicopter company in the not-too-distant future, while
also reporting that 2009 was a strong year for Sikorsky, which
showed over $6.3 billion in turnover for the year... $1.1 billion
of that in its commercial helicopter business.
"If you look at how our competitors calculate their backlogs, we
have some $12 billion of business,'" said Pino. "In the next few
years we could be the biggest helicopter company on the
planet."
One of the reasons for his optimism was the prescient
decision-making that led him to recreate Sikorsky via a number of
dedicated company organizations... one of them pretty much entirely
devoted to the development of new technologies... properly named
"Sikorsky Innovations."
The mission of Sikorsky Innovations is to develop and mature the
technologies, products and processes that will redefine the future
of vertical flight.
The organization builds on Sikorsky's nearly 90 years of
innovation and will increase the scope of previous efforts by
expanding collaborative arrangements spanning government technology
agencies, academic institutions, other UTC facilities and
entrepreneurial businesses where research and product development
will take place in cooperation with Sikorsky's engineers and
technicians. Projects are currently under way at more than 20
locations nationwide.
Among those promising technologies is their work on "optionally
Piloted vehicles." Aircraft that can not only be flown unmanned but
which carry the option of either flying, manned, minimally crewed
or unmanned... all via a control system that can adapt to the
mission requirements at hand. Talk about 'having it your
way...'
Another exciting offering is Sikorsky's work on 'Adaptive Rotor
Technology,' currently boosted along by a major development
contract with DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency).
"Adaptive rotor technologies have the potential to vastly
improve performance, and reduce vibration and noise," said Mark
Miller, Vice President of Research and Engineering, at Heli-Expo
2010. "With this DARPA contract, Sikorsky Innovations will tackle
the challenge of making the helicopter smarter. We are developing
the next generation helicopter - an intelligent and adaptive
helicopter that can become aware of its surroundings, identify the
proximity of a threat, adjust in brownout situations, and respond
appropriately."
ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (05.02.24)
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