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STATEMENT OF
DEAN C. BORGMAN
PRESIDENT
SIKORSKY AIRCRAFT CORPORATION

BEFORE THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICE COMMITTEE
ON THE
U.S. ROTORCRAFT INDUSTRIAL BASE

MARCH 12, 2003 
 

Introduction and Company Background

Chairman Weldon, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to share with you my perspectives on the rotorcraft industrial base in the United States.

I am proud to represent Sikorsky Aircraft on this occasion.  Our company has just celebrated its 80^th birthday, making it one of the oldest aviation companies in the United States.  Our founder, Igor Sikorsky, designed, built and flew the world's first practical helicopter, the VS-300, and we have the privilege of continuing his legacy today.

Our products are currently in service with all five branches of the U.S. military.  Our core product remains the BLACK HAWK helicopter and its derivatives, which fly a number of different missions for the U.S. Army, Air Force and Marine Corps.  We also manufacture the U.S. Navy's SEAHAWK, and the U.S. Coast Guard JAYHAWK.  Our heavy-lift product is called the CH-53, in service to the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.  

We also manufacture two different civil aircraft.  These include the S-76, which flies VIP transport, offshore oil, emergency medical service and airline missions in forty countries around the world.  It also includes the all-new S-92, a 19-22 passenger machine that was recently honored with the Collier Trophy, the aviation industry's highest honor for technology innovation and excellence.

The S-92 has a military variant, the H-92 which is ideally suited to upcoming Air Force and Marine Corps medium-lift requirements, including the Presidential Transport mission that Sikorsky has been honored to fulfill for more than forty years. 

Finally, with our Boeing partner, we are developing the Comanche, the next generation stealth reconnaissance and attack helicopter for the Army.

In terms of our total contractual relationship with the U.S. Government, Sikorsky Aircraft received approximately 5,000 contracts from all U.S. Government customers during Fiscal Year 2001, approximately 4,000 during Fiscal Year 2002, and approximately 1,200 during the first five months of Fiscal Year 2003 related to rotorcraft development, production and support.  The obligated dollar value of these contracts is approximately $1.9 billion, $1.3 billion, and $1.0 billion respectively.

Sikorsky's View of the Current Programs 

I advocate the view that the American rotorcraft industry is fundamentally healthy in the short term.  The United States is home to the largest single military helicopter market in the world, and we have a very active and innovative public-private partnership that is keeping America at the leading edge of rotorcraft technology and performance.

In terms of Sikorsky's current product line, we are seeing reasonable, if not stellar, results in the international marketplace.  Particularly where there is no domestic manufacturer enjoying tacit government protection.

In the past two years, Sikorsky has successfully delivered military helicopters in Israel, Colombia, Turkey, Greece, Thailand, and Spain.  We have seen good civil helicopter sales in China, Korea, Turkey, and most recently Brazil.

We are actively campaigning today for important military procurements that total about fifty helicopters for Canada, Australia and Singapore.  Despite intense European competition, we like our chances in these campaigns.

These are good news stories, but I don't want to gloss over the critical issue of protected markets in Europe, which is the second largest market for military helicopters in the world.

Rhett Flater in his testimony made reference to Sikorsky being shut out in a major competition in the Nordic countries - a coalition that claimed to be interested in a single consolidated purchase of aircraft until the closing weeks of the competition.  Separate contracts were ultimately awarded to two European competitors providing two very different types of helicopters.

We were also undermined in Ireland, where we were announced as the winners last spring of a competition to provide new maritime rescue helicopters to the Irish Air Corps.  We never got to contract, however, because the European competitor who lost filed a lawsuit, and the entire tender was cancelled.  We are now starting all over again.

Even when we win in Europe - as when we clinched a nine-aircraft deal in Austria in 2001 - we believe our European competitors were trying to undo the deal with our customers, even after the announcement was made of Sikorsky's victory.  Fortunately in this case, common sense prevailed.

As my colleagues here will attest, the helicopter industry is a contact sport, particularly internationally.  But in the current environment we are holding our own.

Sikorsky's View of Development and Future Programs

Turning from the today's product line to our products still in development, you can still argue that the industry is healthy and has good prospects.

In our case, we are partners with Boeing on the Comanche program, and with government investment we are rewriting the rulebook on what military helicopters can do.  The Comanche has unprecedented intelligence and processing power cloaked inside world-class stealth technologies.  The result is a highly capable aircraft that will give the Army overwhelming information advantage in future conflicts.

After a successful restructuring of the Comanche program last year, we are on track to begin assembling the first EMD aircraft in 2003.  This great progress on Comanche symbolizes the much greater harmony of funding and schedule that emerged from the restructuring of the program.  There are challenges ahead, to be sure, but the program is now fundamentally achievable for the first time in its long history.

The Comanche provides a good story for the health of the American rotorcraft industry in two ways.  First, I should note that this is a highly desirable product that will have many potential customers outside the United States.   In fact, the only real question is how much of Comanche's technology our government will ultimately choose to share with foreign allies.

Even if we withhold the most sensitive technologies for security reasons, it is certain there will be strong demand outside the United States for this very sophisticated machine.  There is nothing quite like it flying today, or even on the drawing board anywhere.  Friendly governments will want Comanches in their fleets, for sure.

Second, the way in which we will build Comanche will be as advanced as the aircraft itself.  The Comanche factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut, will be high technology, lean manufacturing operation from Day One, incorporating advanced systems that minimize the wastes inherent in any production process and maximize the ultimate quality of the aircraft and its systems.

We will take the lessons we learn with Comanche manufacturing and incorporate as many of them as we can - as fast as we can - back into our legacy production lines for our other products.  This Comanche learning curve will help make us a better and more competitive enterprise overall, which can only help Sikorsky as we fight to win contracts in the international marketplace.

We can tell similar stories regarding some of our other major programs for the U.S. Government.  The remanufacturing of the BLACK HAWK product from its early versions to the newly designated M-model will bring striking new capabilities to our Army customer.  The new aircraft will feature digital cockpits, upgraded engines, improved rotors and transmissions, and numerous other enhancements.

These upgrades to the venerable BLACK HAWK airframe will allow us to bring a more sophisticated machine to the international marketplace.  It also gives us the intriguing possibility to develop a truly low-cost BLACK HAWK, based on the technologies in the older versions of the aircraft.  Such a helicopter would be a potent export product versus European competitors.

Our U.S. Navy programs continue along well, with the MH-60S multi-mission transporter now approved for Full Rate Production, and the MH-60R SEAHAWK making progress in development as the next generation anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare helicopter.  The MH-60R program is scheduled to go into production in 2005, with an ultimate objective of delivering 278 aircraft.

Issues and Implications for the Rotorcraft Industrial Base

So far I have painted a fairly upbeat picture of the rotorcraft industry from our perspective.  We have active, funded programs that hold the promise of advanced technologies, systems, and manufacturing methods.

But like my industry colleagues on this panel, I will caution strongly against complacency or self-satisfaction when it comes to the future of rotorcraft technology.  Indeed, we may already be sowing the seeds of our future demise.

The fundamental reason behind this concern is simple: the technology gains we see applied in our products today are partly attributable to the advanced technology work that was done in a previous generation on core rotorcraft science.

I speak from personal experience.  As a young engineer in the 1960s, I was hired as one of the first employees of the joint Army-NASA rotorcraft technology center at NASA-Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.

It was an exciting time.  My employer, the Army, was already deep into the use of helicopters to support combat operations, but had no facility at which to develop and test useful technologies and vehicle concepts, which could lead to new operational concepts.  In other words, they wanted to become a smarter buyer.

NASA at that time was racing to the Moon, and had excess test capacity for what it viewed as the more mundane aeronautical research projects that took place at Ames.  It was the foundation for a great partnership.

But it was also an exciting time because we moved rapidly into important research that advanced the uniquely challenging science of rotorcraft.  In the mid-1960s, less than 30 years had elapsed since Igor Sikorsky's first flight in the VS-300.  There were still many undeveloped properties of rotary wing flight that needed to be explored further.

These experiments and tests dating from that first decade at NASA Ames have had a profound effect on current rotorcraft designs and operations.  A few examples help underscore the point.

• The advanced rotor system being developed on Comanche today is based on fundamental work on bearingless main rotor (BMR) technology developed at NASA Ames beginning in the 1970s.
• The first full scale rotor noise measurements made on rotorcraft were done in the NASA-Ames 40 x 80 wind tunnel, and this research formed the foundation of helicopter noise reduction work since that time.
• The solution to the issues holding back further development of tiltrotor technology was demonstrated in the NASA-Ames 40 x 80 wind tunnel, and was the basis for the decision to proceed with the XV-15 technology demonstrator aircraft.  The XV-15, of course, formed the technology base for the V-22 program.  There would be no V-22 program today had this work not been done.

In short, the industry and our military customers took advantage of the NASA-Ames opportunity to deepen our understanding of rotorcraft science and technology.  This greater understanding then translated directly into new vehicle designs and new applications for helicopters, giving rise to America's unquestioned ability to command the air immediately above the modern battlespace.

Contrast that excitement, then, against the current state of affairs at NASA-Ames, where national assets like the 40 x 80 and 80 x 120 wind tunnel facilities sit idle for want of money, and we struggle along with our friends in Congress to scrape together funding at even a fraction of historical levels.

Nothing is free in life, and certainly nothing is free when it comes to advancing the causes of science and engineering.  In the absence of investments - today - in rotorcraft technology, the helicopters our armed forces will use in 2050 will be no quieter, safer, or fundamentally more capable than the aircraft coming out of our factories today.

And while my remarks have focused on military products and military applications, Rhett Flater has accurately pointed to the potential benefits that commercial helicopters can bring to our country.

It goes without saying that our national air transportation system - dependent on fixed wing aircraft deployed from large hub airports - is showing its age.  One out of every five flights in this country fails to arrive at its destination on time, and that ratio spikes even higher in winter months.

Helicopters offer a tantalizing, non-runway dependent alternative to fixed wing aircraft over short hauls, but they are limited by social objections to noise levels that many communities still find unacceptable.  Consider the following:

• Helicopter operations in New York City, arguably one of the most important civil rotorcraft markets in the world, have fallen sharply over the past decade, as pressure groups have grown increasingly organized.  The city now has just three dedicated heliports, placing an artificially low cap on what that market could actually handle in terms of demand.
• The city of Albuquerque has banned the location of any helipads within 350 feet of any residential area.  As a result, two local news stations were forced to relocate their aircraft to the local airport.
• In Virginia City, Nevada, hundreds of local residents turned out to oppose the launch of a new helicopter tour service in their community.
• In Southlake, Texas, the city council has limited by law the number of flights permitted to executives of the Sabre Group from the company's helipad.  The annual number of flights allowed is half of what the company requested.
• Boston, a bustling metropolitan center with a chronically dysfunctional airport, no longer has a dedicated heliport.  There was another revolution that began in Boston a couple of hundred years ago.  Is this a case of history repeating itself?
• Both Seattle and San Francisco have regulations preventing overflights of privately owned helicopters except for emergency use as well.

There is room in our national transportation system for a quieter helicopter, but we need fundamental, industry-wide research on next-generation blade tip technologies and blade control systems.  This is the kind of work that can take place only under the umbrella of a national rotorcraft technology program.

While such a technology program could take many forms, as someone who was present at the creation of the Army-NASA partnership thirty-five years ago, I would argue that we should not overlook the tremendous national assets resident at the NASA-Ames Research Center.

NASA-Ames is home to low- and high-speed wind tunnels and rotor and tiltrotor test stands, where the rotorcraft industry has tested its technologies for decades.  The scientists and technicians there are active participants in the American Helicopter Society, with strong connections to the people, laboratories and test beds not only at Sikorsky, but also at the other major helicopter OEMs, university centers of excellence, and other federal research facilities.

These assets at NASA-Ames, and the people who oversee them, collectively represent a unique national capability.  Whatever additional support Congress or the Administration choose to provide to the industry should leverage as directly as possible the existing framework of people, laboratories and relationships.  This would be both the fastest and the most cost-effective approach to revitalizing the science and technology infrastructure for rotorcraft.

Conclusion

I would like once again to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your intense interest in the health and future of America's helicopter industry.  As today's testimony makes clear, we are challenged on many fronts.  There is no doubt that we can meet these challenges.  And there is no doubt that increased investment in the core technologies to make rotorcraft safer, quieter, and more efficient are the best strategy to enhance our competitive position in the world marketplace.

Thank you for this opportunity to appear before this committee.