Airbus Helicopters CEO Bruno Even remains hopeful he can partner with Leonardo to scale up a next-generation European military helicopter, despite his rival’s partnership with US manufacturer Bell to promote rotor-based tilting platforms.
Recently, through the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA), it was decided that European aircraft brands and the first American Sikorsky would submit design studies for a next-generation helicopter mission managed on behalf of six States members.
Although the project members (France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) are all European, as a NATO initiative, contracts for the Next Generation Rotorcraft Capability (NGRC) initiative are open to corporations founded in any country in the world. For example, NSPA has already contracted GE Aerospace and Sikorsky’s parent company, Lockheed Martin, to work on this project.
Airbus hoped to partner with Leonardo on this initiative, taking over its NH Industries (NHI) collaboration with GKN/Fokker, despite the companies’ other approaches to meeting the high-speed requirements of the NGRC, which prefer composite and tiltrotator architectures. respectively.
But Leonardo announced a pact with Bell in February in which the two men will collaborate on tiltrotator-based designs, either for the NGRC or for projects.
Although Even, in a conversation with FlightGlobal at the Farnborough Airshow before the NSPA’s announcement on 26 July, noted that the NGRC “far from launching a programme”, he admitted that Airbus would prefer to partner with a European aircraft manufacturer in order to meet a European requirement, as we did with the [NHI] NH90.
He even says that “in a sense” he was surprised by Leonardo’s decision to marry Bell “but on the other hand, we know that Bell is making an investment in the tiltrotor concept and the same for Leonardo, so they probably need to carry this concept to the next scene. “
But at this point, the task for brands is to allow nations to make an informed decision about the potential trade-offs between other helicopter architectures and the functionality sought.
“All operational needs, like broadband, have consequences,” he says, similar to characteristics like the size, load, and maturity of any platform. “Our role as an industry. . . is to find the best solution and engagement from visitors. . . and converge on what their vision of future military helicopter desires might be,” she says.
He even believes that “there is no single solution” and, based on all the needs exposed so far, “we assume that there may be other characteristics depending on what the visitor needs to concentrate on”.
This may lead component countries “perhaps to conclude [that] in the end it means two other options, two other programs: broadband aimed at a component of the market, niche or not, and a classic helicopter like the NH90 where an upgrade to In the long term it can also satisfy part of the need. ”
But for the high-speed element, Even firmly believes that a composite helicopter (e. g. of the generation being tested lately on Airbus Helicopters’ Racer civil demonstrator) is the “best solution”.
“In our view, the most productive response to a broadband requirement is a composite architecture, because broadband is the only requirement,” he says.
Ultimately, if NGRC partner countries launch a new progression program “in such a scenario. . . as Airbus we really need to get involved,” says Even.
“We consider that there deserves to be a European program to satisfy the wishes of a European demand and we believe that the most productive reaction deserves to be European cooperation,” he stated.
But only once the operational and technical needs have been agreed will the industry be able to “what could be the most productive commercial cooperation to meet this need. “
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