Kaman To Restart Helicopter Production In Bloomfield
Resource from: CT Now Likes:141
Jun 08,2015
BLOOMFIELD — Kaman Corp. is restarting production of its K-MAX helicopter, resuming aircraft production for the first time since it stopped making the helicopter more than a decade ago.
The work will be split between Kaman's facilities in Connecticut and Florida, the company said early Friday. The company plans to make an initial 10 helicopters and to deliver the first of them in early 2017.
"It will be great for the industry to have Kaman back in production again," Neal J. Keating, Kaman's chief executive, said in an interview.
"To be able to go to our employees and the community and the industry and signal that Kaman is in a position to restart production of our commercial heavy lift helicopter is a great sign," Keating said.
He and other executives said restarting the production of the K-MAX validates the legacy left by the company's late founder, Charles H. Kaman, who designed the single-seat helicopter and brought it into production in the early 1990s.
"It was the final aircraft that he designed and put into production at Kaman," Keating said. "It demonstrates that this innovation is still today the very fabric upon which our company is founded."
The helicopter has a single engine and two rotors, which spin in opposite directions and intermesh. The K-Max can lift up to 6,000 pounds and has been used commercially for logging and fighting fires.
Kaman made the decision to restart the helicopter line after interest built in recent years.
Customers responsible for launch of the new line include Rotex Helicopter, which currently uses the K-MAX for forestry missions in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria and Germany; and Helicopter Express, which flies the helicopter for firefighting, disaster relief, humanitarian missions and power line installations.
Terry Fogarty, director of business development for the K-MAX program, said he has enough of the aircraft on deposit to restart the line. He said he expects to eventually build far more than the initial run of 10.
"It's a very fun thing, to make helicopters again," Fogarty said.
In November, Kaman demonstrated the K-MAX's firefighting capabilities to the U.S. Department of the Interior. The company plans to demonstrate those capabilities again to the department in Boise, Idaho, later this year.
The U.S. Marine Corps flew the helicopter in Afghanistan until 2014, taking crucial military convoys off the country's dangerous roads. The military maintains two of the aircraft, but has yet to create a specific K-MAX program or to order more.
The initial production run will support manned commercial uses, but Keating said the restarted line will put the company in a "better position for potential military production as well."
Kaman first certified the K-MAX in 1994, producing about 35 of the helicopters before halting production in 2003. In 2011, when the military selected Kaman and Lockheed Martin to develop unmanned lift capabilities for the helicopter, Time magazine named it one of the top 50 innovations of the year.
Kaman plans to build the fuselage for the helicopter in Jacksonville, Fla., and make the rotors and components in Bloomfield. The final assembly, testing and sales will also be in Bloomfield. The company said it values the program at $75 million to $85 million.
To restart the program, Keating said, workers have spent months reviewing old plans.
Fogarty said the tools for the parts were kept in an environmentally controlled warehouse. "It's a matter of dusting them off, cleaning them up, and using them," he said.
The new production line will require some additional workers in Connecticut and Florida, but Keating said many workers for the K-MAX line will transition from the company's other programs, like the work, now winding down, on its SH-2 Seasprites. "We do hope over time it will support some more employment," Keating said.
(CT Now)
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