Czech manufacturer Aero Vodochody has celebrated producing its 100th Sikorsky S-76C at its site in Odolena Voda outside Prague (pictured below).
Aero secured a subcontract contract with the US helicopter manufacturer in 2000 to supply the fully-assembled fuselage. Sikorsky installs the engines, transmissions and rotor systems at its facilities in Stratford, Connecticut before completion and customer delivery of the medium twin helicopter. Aero Vodochody is now the sole manufacturing site for the Sikorsky programme, which now represents 90% of the Czech company's aerostructures division. Aero also builds around one-third of the 8,500 components in each helicopter.
US aerospace parts supplier Fairchild and its subsidiary Banner Aerospace are bidding to acquire Aero Vodochody. The Czech manufacturer is currently negotiating several new aerostructures contracts in an attempt to widen its risk exposure.
“Recently, we have been negotiating significant contracts with new potential partners,” says Monika Vajnerova, Aero Vodochody vice-president for aerostructures. Aero Vodochody has a strategic goal to win a same volume of subcontracts as the Sikorsky deal within three years, she adds. Currently the company's largest other contract is on the Boeing F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet, Airbus A320 and A340 subassemblies and parts.
The company is also a joint venture partner with Taiwan's Aerospace Industrial Development (AIDC) on the Ibis Aerospace Ae270 high speed business tubroprop aircraft.
The current S-76C version, the C++ will be replaced by the D variant by 2008.
Source: Flight International
