Helicopter Makers Upbeat Despite Oil-led Slump
Top U.S. and European helicopter executives said this week that the oil price-led commercial helicopter market slump would be temporary and that they will keep investing in new technologies given the sector's positive long-term outlook. The downturn will likely last 18 to 24 months, Sikorsky Aircraft's new president, Robert Leduc, said at Paris Airshow, adding that he fully expected demand to rebound at some point. United Technologies Corp's announcement this week that it would sell…
Helicopter Operators Set for Take-off as Oil Drilling Picks Up
A pickup in offshore drilling is swelling the orderbooks of the handful of helicopter operators that shuttle oil workers to and from remote rigs. Their stock prices, depressed after Big Oil's recent spending cuts, could also be readying for take-off. Bristow Group Inc plans to invest $1 billion this year to procure just some of the 300 new helicopters that Barclays estimates will be needed by the oil and gas industry over the next five years. "We will invest more in this one year than in the last two-and-a-half years combined…
Ballard Power Posts Smaller-Than-Expected Loss
Canadian fuel cell maker Ballard Power Systems Inc posted a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss, helped by higher revenue from its engineering services and material handling businesses. Revenue from Ballard's engineering services business, which counts Volkswagen AG among its customers, rose nearly threefold in the first quarter ended March 31. The business accounted for half of Ballard's total revenue in the quarter. Ballard said it expected to begin supplying fuel cell stacks to service Plug Power Inc's order with Wal-Mart Stores Inc in the second half of this year.
UTC Delivers Latest Sonar Dome Window to Navy
UTC Aerospace Systems has delivered its latest sonar dome rubber window produced at its facility in Jacksonville, Fla. to the U.S. Navy, bringing the total to more than 150 delivered. The company's Engineered Polymer Products (EPP) team has been the exclusive supplier of sonar domes for FFG-7, DDG-51 and CG-47 class ships to the U.S. Navy and allied navies for more than 40 years. A sonar dome is an acoustically transparent housing that surrounds the sonar transducer array, which together form the sonar's sensor system.
