Kaman Aerospace Corp. has moved months ahead of rivals — including Sikorsky Aircraft — seeking a share of the Pentagon’s multi-billion-dollar budget for pilotless helicopters to supply battlefield units.
After successful initial tests, the Marine Corps has decided to deploy Kaman’s K-Max helicopter to Afghanistan later this year. If the helicopter fares well in the field, a long-term contract to produce the K-Max could allow Kaman to hire about 200 new workers and restart the production line at its Bloomfield plant.
A U.S. military contract would help erase the bad taste left at Kaman after Australia abruptly ended in 2008 its contract with the company to supply its defense force with the Super Seasprite.
The K-Max, a 5,100 pound remote-controlled helicopter designed for repetitive lifts in hostile environments, is set to be deployed to Afghanistan later this year where the U.S. Marine Corps will test the aircraft for cargo supply missions in remote bases.
Terry Fogarty, the general manager of Kaman’s unmanned aerial system project, said he’s confident of the company’s ability to secure a government contract to build more helicopters for the military.
“If some number of unmanned K-Max helicopters are deployed to Afghanistan and operated, then the military will see first-hand the value of the K-Max to perform the cargo resupply mission,” Fogarty said.
Kaman teamed up with Lockheed Martin Corp. in 2007 and transformed a manned version of the K-MAX, which is in use in logging and construction, into a pilotless helicopter. Lockheed outfitted the helicopter with an unmanned aerial system and mission management system.
Fogarty said Kaman is working with the Marines and the Naval Air Systems Command, the contracting authority for the project, to get a number of K-Max helicopters deployed to Afghanistan in the near future.
Kaman and Lockheed own three K-Max helicopters that can be modified immediately.
But some aerospace analysts, who study the military’s growing unmanned aircraft market, doubt any unmanned cargo resupply helicopters will be produced in meaningful numbers.
Kaman also faces competition from larger aerospace companies vying for a Defense Department contract to build pilotless aircraft. Boeing, under contract with the Pentagon, has developed the A160 Hummingbird, an unmanned helicopter that’s lighter and faster than the K-MAX. And the Stratford-based Sikorsky recently announced it is designing an unmanned version of its Black Hawk helicopter.
The Pentagon’s demand for unmanned aircraft for intelligence, reconnaissance and, surveillance is at a record high because of the on-going conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Last year, the Marine Corps Systems Command at Quantico, Va. put out a request for proposals for a pilotless helicopter. Kaman and Lockheed won a $860,000 contract to demonstrate K-Max’s ability. Kaman later received another $3.2 million development contract.
Boeing received $500,000 to demonstrate the Hummingbird’s capability.
According to a 2010 market study conducted by The Teal Group, a Virginia aerospace and defense analyst, unmanned aerial vehicle spending will more than double worldwide over the next decade from $4.9 billion annually to $11.5 billion, totaling just over $80 billion in the next 10 years.
But the market for unmanned cargo resupply helicopters like the K-Max are so far from serial production that the Teal Group didn’t forecast the category in its 400-page study, said senior analyst Steve Zaloga.
But for the Marines, the use of unmanned aircraft in Afghanistan can’t come any sooner, said Dan Spoor, vice president of Lockheed Martin Corp.
“When deployed, the capability will save lives from roadside bombs by getting ground vehicle convoys off the roads, effect deliveries more quickly to rapidly moving troops where no roads exist, and free up manned helicopters that are more expensive to operate and are desperately needed for other missions,” Spoor said.
Spoor said K-MAX has a distinct edge against aerospace competitors because it can lift more and fly at higher altitudes than any other unmanned helicopter. The aircraft put on a successful demonstration for the Marines last month at a testing site in Utah.
