Sikorsky's parent company Lockheed Martin intends to register an office in Chile to help push aircraft sales in Latin America.
The company said it is in the process of registering an office with the Chilean government, adding that it intends to also use the site as a base for naval business in the region.
Lockheed Martin is pitching the Sikorsky S-70 Black Hawk, Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk and the Sikorsky / PZL Mielec M28 short-take-off-and-landing aircraft to countries across Latin America. The company says it is discussing helicopter sales with the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru.
Sikorsky will also pitch a new naval version of the S-70 called the Coastal Patrol Black Hawk.
“We see the need for a Black Hawk helicopter that can perform a coastal patrol mission to serve countries in Latin America – as well as countries worldwide – that have lengthy coastlines, few ships, the need for a land-based platform and little or no requirement for anti-submarine warfare capabilities,” the company says. “The Sikorsky S-70 Coastal Patrol Black Hawk will allow countries to monitor, interrogate and identify shipping traffic, surveil borders, protect fisheries, perform search and rescue missions at sea, add superior situational awareness, quickly adapt the multi-role platform to any mission and perform the mission at half the cost of an ASW/ASuW Seahawk aircraft.”
The company says the Coastal Patrol Black Hawk is only in the conceptual phase. Sikrosky aims to offer the aircraft in the early 2020s to militaries that operate the modern digital variant of the Black Hawk helicopter.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
