Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation Awards the Ramta Division of Israel Aircraft Industries, Ltd. a Contract for an All-Composite Folding H-60 Stabilator
Jul 22, 2002
Beer Sheva, Israel - Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation has awarded the Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) Ramta Division a contract for the design and development of composite folding stabilator outer wings for the H-60 series of Black Hawk and Seahawk helicopters. Serial production of the H-60 composite stabilator outer wings has over $35 million in revenue potential to IAI-Ramta over the next 20 years.
Development efforts will include flight-testing and will pave the way for US Army and Navy qualification. Pending successful flight qualification, this new composite folding stabilator design is positioned to become a common stabilator on all Black Hawk and Seahawk platforms within follow-on serial production contracts covering both new production and retrofit programs.
The IAI-Ramta design is based on a very advanced integrally constructed carbon fiber aerostructure, which was optimized to provide significant weight and cost savings relative to the existing stabilator made of aluminum sheet metal construction. Benefits to the existing and future users of the H-60 Black Hawk and Seahawk helicopters include increased payload and mission flexibility as well as lower cost.
The cost for the design, development, and risk mitigation testing of the composite H-60 stabilator is being shared between Sikorsky and IAI-Ramta. Mr. Chanan Ben-Dov, Director of Marketing and Business Development for the IAI Ramta Division said, "we were awarded this contract following a very tough competition against many other aerospace companies both domestically and internationally. We managed to win by proposing a very advanced aerostructural design, while simultaneously providing the proof that it could be serially manufactured at competitive prices. These are the rules of the game for this industry."
Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation is a subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation of Hartford, Connecticut, USA, which provides a broad range of high-technology products and support services to the aerospace and defense industry. Sikorsky is under contract to deliver 24 Black Hawk transport helicopters to the Israel Air Force (IAF) in 2002 under a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) contract with the Government of Israel. The IAF Black Hawk procurement has set the stage for possible future cooperative agreements between United Technologies, Inc. and IAI-Ramta as well as the rest of the Israeli aerospace industry.
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Ramta is IAI?s center of excellence for the design-build, build-to-spec and build-to-print of metallic, metal-bonded and composite material aerostructures. Located in the city of Beer Sheva in the northern section of Israel?s Negev region, Ramta also produces composite rudders for Boeing?s F-15 aircraft, honeycomb sandwich structural assemblies of the B777 empennage tips, composite structures for various helicopter programs around the world, fuselages for IAI?s attack UAV programs, B747 main-deck cargo doors, and other programs. IAI-Ramta also assembles and joins the cockpit and forward fuselage sections and integrated empennage of the Gulfstream G200 8-19 seat intercontinental business jet.
Ramta employs 460 people, and has an annual sales turnover of $55 million. In 2001, the division added over $100 million in newly signed contracts to its backlog, while the expectation based on 2002 trends is to repeat this level of new order bookings in 2002.
For further information, please contact:
Chanan Ben-Dov
Director of Marketing & Business Development
Ramta Division / IAI
Tel: 972 (8) 640-2250
Fax: 972 (8) 640-2252
Email: cbendov@iai.co.il
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