The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
As Pentagon shifts contracts, Sikorsky gets Q2 revenue lift
Ramping up production for a new fleet of helicopters for the White House, Sikorsky revenue rose $240 million in the second quarter with the company securing a new contract to sell two dozen Seahawk naval helicopters to the government of India.
Sikorsky is southwestern Connecticut’s largest private-sector employer, with the Lockheed Martin subsidiary having continued operations at its main plant in Stratford throughout the coronavirus pandemic as an “essential” business to the military and aerospace sectors.
In addition to Sikorsky helicopters, Lockheed Martin sells a range of other military and aerospace systems including F-35 fighter jets, missiles, satellites and varying systems installed on submarines built in Groton by the Electric Boat subsidiary of General Dynamics. Since March, Lockheed Martin has hired 9,000 people and is seeking another 3,000 workers, according to new CEO Jim Taiclet who spoke Tuesday on a conference call with investment analysts.
“This company, to me, is incredibly well-positioned for any reasonable range of outcomes in defense spending and the economy over the next few years,” Taiclet said. “The innovation gene at this company is fantastic.”
In its first reporting period under Taiclet following the transition of former CEO Marillyn Hewson to the role of executive chair, Lockheed Martin earned $1.6 billion in the second quarter with revenue up 12 percent from a year earlier to $16.2 billion, as the Department of Defense accelerated payments to prime contractors in an effort to front-load orders for their smaller suppliers to ward off any layoffs.
In early April, a major Lockheed Martin rival was bolstered after Raytheon merged with United Technologies, whose subsidiaries include East Hartford-based Pratt & Whitney where Taiclet worked earlier in his career. Within weeks the new Raytheon Technologies sold its satellite optics lab in Danbury to Colorado-based Amergint Technologies.
The U.S. Department of Defense has multiple large procurement programs in the early stages with Sikorsky, including a fleet of 23 VH-92A “White Top” helicopters to shuttle the president, for which Congress has earmarked $4.9 billion. The fuselages for the helicopters are being built at a Sikorsky plant in Coatesville, Pa. west of Philadelphia, before being shipped to Stratford and then to a Lockheed Martin facility in upstate New York for final systems installation.
According to an update on the program published this month by the Congressional Research Service, Sikorsky continues to work on a few fixes for the VH-92a, including a communications system glitch that is delaying the program by three months; and downdrafts from the helicopter’s rotors sufficiently powerful to damage the White House lawn.
Other programs include a rescue helicopter for the U.S. Air Force; and 200 CH-53K King Stallion helicopters for the Marine Corps, and possibly for Germany and Israel as well which are analyzing options for big utility helicopters. The U.S. Navy conducted a two-week sea trial last month of the King Stallion from the deck of the USS Wasp, off the Atlantic seaboard.
Further out, Sikorsky is gearing up for a “fly off ” competition with the Bell Helicopter division of Textron to win rights to produce a new generation of verticallift aircraft for decades to come. Whereas Bell has proposed two platforms to date — one a traditional helicopter design and one derived from its V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft — Sikorsky is sticking to the unifying concept of a helicopter with stacked rotor sets spinning in opposite directions, along with a “pusher prop” mounted on the tail to increase flight speed.