A decision by France to reduce the number of Airbus-built military transports will affect Windsor Locks-based Hamilton Sundstrand, which makes the propellers for the planes through its Ratier-Figeac subsidiary in France.
It is unclear how severe the fallout will be for Hamilton, but company spokesman Dan Coulom said that the company “has systems and components on most of the world’s aircraft, so we are no dependent on any one program.”
A reduction in France’s order for 50 of the four-engine turboprops is among actions being considered, according to an Associated Press report quoting Laurent Collet-Billon, head of France’s Direction Generale de l’Armement.
In the report, Collet-Billon said the seven NATO countries that are behind the A400M — France, Germany, Spain, Britain, Turkey, Belgium and Luxembourg — have agreed to a three-month “stand-still” on any decisions on A400M orders, to give Airbus’s military division, EADS, time to work out a new delivery schedule.
In September, EADS indefinitely postponed the plane’s first flight.
Hamilton in 2003 won a major contract to develop and produce the propeller system for the A400M military transport plane.
The value of the contract is $830 million over the life of the program, according to a 2003 statement from Michel Ferey, Ratier-Figeac’s vice president for sales and marketing.
The FH386 propellers on the aircraft will be 17.5 feet long and use eight composite blades each, with individual blade replacement capability, according to Ferey.
Ratier-Figeac will build the propeller systems, since Hamilton Sundstrand’s propeller operations in Windsor Locks have been closed.
The development and production work also involved Hamilton partners Nord-Micro in Germany and Microtecnica of Italy, Hamilton officials said.
Also in 2003, Hamilton corporate sibling Pratt & Whitney lost a potential $4 billion engine contract to a partnership of three European engine makers. The reversal came even though East Hartford-based Pratt underbid the European partnership, which includes Snecma of France, Britain’s Rolls-Royce, and Germany’s MTU.
Both Hamilton and Pratt are divisions of Hartford-based United Technologies Corp. UTC stock closed the day Wednesday at $41.71 per share.
