For Chris Emerson “everything starts now.” Emerson was appointed president and CEO of Airbus Helicopters, Inc. and head of Airbus Helicopters North America on June 1, 2015. He joined the helicopter side from parent company Airbus, where he was senior v-p and head of marketing. Before that he worked for Mercedes Benz and EADS (today the Airbus Group). He is a graduate of the University of Alabama.
Emerson joined Airbus Helicopters as it embarked on an ambitious program of global regionalization while here in the U.S. it benefits from the large and challenging Lakota primary training contract with the U.S. Army. The company has also seen dramatically improved product support as measured by AIN’s Product Support Survey, leapfrogging into second place behind perennial winner Bell Helicopter.
Emerson understands that keeping 200 UH-72A Lakotas flying in the Army’s primary aviation training program is a challenge and described the steps Airbus is taking to meet it. “We are at the end of the first 10-year program support contract with the Lakota, and we are having to modify it [for the training mission]. We are in negotiations with the Army to look at the next five years.”
He added, “For me the environment has changed from when we initially fielded Lakotas. We fielded them as active military components in the [U.S. Army National] Guard for air medevac and VIP transport between Army posts. Now we will have 200 Lakotas at Fort Rucker doing initial pilot training. This is a game changer on how we have to think about supporting the aircraft. The Army will be looking at putting upwards of 600 hours [per year] on each aircraft. When I went to Fort Rucker and met with General Lundy, his comment was, ‘My job is to train these kids to be ready for combat. Your job is to make sure your helicopters are available.’”
Airbus Helicopters established a program office in Fort Rucker and placed parts in a warehouse provided by the Army, as well as on-site technical representatives. “The Army has an existing ACLC [aviation center logistics command] contract with L-3 Vertex,” Emerson said, “which is doing all the wrench turning, so it is our technical reps helping out L-3 when they are doing the actual work on the aircraft.
“There’s a little bit of looking into the crystal ball here. This is the first time the Army is operating a twin-engine [helicopter] as its trainer for initial pilots. It’s a new curriculum. This is the first time we are going to have 200 training aircraft with one customer. There are a lot of nuances that I don’t want to miss so I might be building up a little of a protective barrier. I don’t want to be the guy sitting at the table when we can’t deliver to the Army.”
Training Improvements
Emerson said Airbus, concurrent with its challenge from the Army, is looking to revamp its training offerings for all of its customers. This includes plans to install a Level D H135/H145 roll-on/roll-off simulator at its campus near Dallas in Grand Prairie, Texas.
“Globally at Airbus Helicopters we are launching a regional strategy, which is why I am also head of [Airbus Helicopters] North America. Part of that strategy is to develop a regional strategy here in Dallas. The training center will be more than North America; it will be a training center for all the Americas. The plan will be to bring in a Level D H135/H145 because we can do roll-on/roll-off of the cabin. When the market for oil and gas is back we will have the Level D H175. If the H160 really gets market penetration in North America we’ll also look at Dallas being the H160 simulator location for the Americas. We'll still have a few simulators for the oil and gas market based in Brazil, but we’re trying to migrate everything back to Dallas.”
Emerson expects more news on those simulators to be announced here at Heli-Expo. Airbus Helicopters already has a Level B flight training device (FTD) for the H125 at Grand Prairie, and Emerson is hoping to improve its value proposition for customers.
“Right now we are improving the level of service we deliver with the Level B simulator. Our target is to keep the cost the same because you are competing with flying the actual helicopter. To make the sim work we have to offer more services in the sim.”
As an example, Emerson pointed to a recent contract with U.S. Customs and Border Protection for technical flight officer training in the simulator. “We’re offering the customer more training for that same hourly rate. You don’t need a Level D for that. You don’t need to make that same investment that is going to drive my cost up and make me raise the price for that work.
“What we are doing is improving the software in our Level B with all the video, compression and clarity that you can have without being a Level D. Remember, we are more than a simulator training facility. We have four to five aircraft that pilots train in. We are developing a program that complements flying time with simulator time.” The benefits of this become evident with learning how to hover, he explained. “You can’t learn from scratch how to hover in a sim. You need to be in a real aircraft. But then there is inadvertent IMC. You can’t do that in a real aircraft because you can't control the weather. But you can train that in a sim. We are developing those courses.”
Customer-support Initiatives
While Emerson is gratified that customers recognize the company’s improved customer support, initiatives toward further improvement are continuing. “We’ve done quite a few in the last six months. First we went to a seven-day workweek in the DFW warehouse. Our operators don’t take the weekend off and it is not acceptable that they have to wait until Monday for a part. Following our regional strategy, we have made Dallas the regional distribution center for the Americas. That’s costing us millions of dollars because we’re increasing the stock levels here in Dallas, but it is going to make us much more responsive to our local market in addition to supporting the Latin America market.
“We’re also working on succession planning, beefing up our field service rep teams in a way that may be a little redundant. The way I look at it is that I need to have bench depth out in the field. We’ve got some great tech reps here but they could retire in the next five years. I don’t want to have a learning curve when they retire. I want it to be like you flip a switch and the next tech rep is there. The customer should not see a degradation in the level of service, so we are building a bench depth in the sphere of support.”
Emerson said work is continuing on developing a lightweight onboard health usage and monitoring system for Airbus Helicopters. “On HUMS we've done all the ground monitoring and flight testing on using the sensors and they are working out quite well on the intermediate gearboxes and the aerostructures. We’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at algorithms; we tend to know our parts better. We’re committed to keeping the system light, and now it is seven or eight pounds. You will see some actual movement on this this year.”
Perhaps more important, Emerson said, Airbus has taken aggressive moves to support “sustainment engineering” in the U.S. “Customers tell me that they are not going to buy a new helicopter until we take care of the one they already bought. So we’re going to be spending much more effort in North America sustaining the existing fleet. Last year I appointed Jeff Trang as the head of technology engineering and flight operations. He previously worked at the FAA and was an Army test pilot. The reason is that with all of the development programs that we have undertaken–the H145, the H135T3P3, the H160, the H215, the 225 replacement, who is concentrating on sustainment engineering on the Dauphin and the light helicopters? I have the agreement from Europe that I am going to take on more sustainment engineering.
“This is a big deal for us. It is the first time for us since being in the U.S. that we are now operating under the EASA DOA to design under the type certificate of the AS365 [Dauphin]. Baby steps but necessary baby steps to get us where we need to be. The U.S. Coast Guard is a very complex customer that has done a lot of modifications to [its AS365s], and we are just catching up to that. They want those aircraft to fly until 2035.”
With all this activity, Emerson does not think he will need to expand the Airbus Helicopters physical plants in Texas or Mississippi, at least not in the near term. “I’ve got capacity here [in Grand Prairie]. We were sized for 150 deliveries per year and we are under 100. Mississippi was sized for 55 Lakotas. We did 27 last year and will ramp up to 35 next year. The only investment I need to make is on the training center where I need to build the building for the simulators.” o