Piasecki Aircraft acquires Lockheed Martin Sikorsky Heliplex in Coatesville, Pennsylvania

Piasec­ki Air­craft Cor­po­ra­tion (PiAC), a pio­neer in advanced rotor­craft tech­nol­o­gy, announced today that it has acquired the for­mer Lock­heed Mar­tin Siko­rsky Heli­plex facil­i­ty in Coatesville, Penn­syl­va­nia, which pre­vi­ous­ly served as a pro­duc­tion and deliv­ery cen­tre for Siko­rsky’s S‑76 and S‑92 heli­copters.

The com­pa­ny will trans­form the 219,000 square foot state-of-the-art facil­i­ty into an advanced R&D cen­tre for next-gen­er­a­tion VTOL air­craft, unmanned aer­i­al sys­tems (UAS), and relat­ed enabling tech­nolo­gies.

Notably, the company’s forth­com­ing PA-890 heli­copter, the world’s first zero-emis­sion hydro­gen fuel cell rotor­craft, will be built and test­ed there. The facil­i­ty — which includes engi­neer­ing devel­op­ment, air­craft assem­bly, paint and fin­ish­ing facil­i­ties, and a well-equipped pro­duc­tion flight test and deliv­ery cen­tre — will open its doors to employ­ees in the fall and is expect­ed to attract about 400 work­ers by 2028.

John Piasec­ki, CEO of PiAC, said: “We chose to expand our devel­op­ment capa­bil­i­ties in the Delaware Val­ley because of its deep roots with­in the heli­copter indus­try, its high­ly-tal­ent­ed work­force, and its robust sup­pli­er net­work.

“PiAC is com­mit­ted to cre­at­ing local jobs by fos­ter­ing cut­ting-edge inno­va­tion and we’re excit­ed to sup­port a com­mu­ni­ty that has long prid­ed itself on deliv­er­ing avi­a­tion excel­lence.”

US Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Chris­sy Houla­han from Penn­syl­va­ni­a’s 6th con­gres­sion­al dis­trict, added: “It’s excit­ing to see a com­pa­ny like Piasec­ki devel­op­ing new tech­nolo­gies like the PA-890 hydro­gen fuel cell-pow­ered heli­copter right here in PA’s sixth dis­trict.

“Piasecki’s Coatesville expan­sion will revi­talise the man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ties which were for­mer­ly home to Lock­heed Martin/Sikorsky Heli­plex. I am proud to sup­port their vision and will con­tin­ue to sup­port inno­va­tions such as hydro­gen fuel cell devel­op­ment through my work in Con­gress.”

Piaseck­i’s acqui­si­tion and expan­sion into the Heli­plex facil­i­ty was enabled by the strong sup­port from Penn­syl­va­nia Gov­er­nors Tom Wolf and Josh Shapiro; the Chester Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­ers; the Chester Coun­ty Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cil; Sen­a­tor Robert Casey; and Con­gress­woman Chris­sy Houla­han.

2023 marks 80 years of PiAC inno­va­tion in ver­ti­cal flight, a lega­cy that began in 1943 with the PV‑2, the sec­ond suc­cess­ful heli­copter to fly in Amer­i­ca, now on dis­play at the Smith­son­ian Air & Space Muse­um.

Short­ly after, PiAC devel­oped the world’s first tan­dem rotor heli­copter — a rev­o­lu­tion­ary design that has been instru­men­tal in count­less life-sav­ing mis­sions around the globe since WWII — and which lives on in Boeing’s CH-47 Chi­nook heli­copters.

PiAC is build­ing on this lega­cy with advanced dig­i­tal flight con­trol and flight automa­tion tech­nol­o­gy, hydro­gen fuel cell and hybrid propul­sion sys­tems, mor­ph­ing aerostruc­tures, and more.

The PA-890 is the first zero-emis­sion hydro­gen-pow­ered slowed-rotor winged heli­copter for use in emer­gency med­ical ser­vices, high-val­ue on-demand logis­tics, and on-demand mobil­i­ty per­son­nel air trans­port.

In addi­tion to zero car­bon emis­sions, the PA-890 eVTOL enables up to a 50% reduc­tion in direct oper­at­ing cost and reduced noise com­pared with today’s fos­sil fuel tur­bine heli­copters.

PiAC is col­lab­o­rat­ing with ZeroAvia, a leader in hydro­gen-pow­ered fixed wing avi­a­tion, to devel­op and imple­ment its rev­o­lu­tion­ary High Tem­per­a­ture Pro­ton Exchange Mem­brane (HTPEM) hydro­gen fuel cell tech­nol­o­gy for PA-890 and oth­er VTOL appli­ca­tions.

Invest­ment from the U.S. Air Force in the ground test­ing of a 660kW HTPEM hydro­gen fuel cell propul­sion sys­tem is accel­er­at­ing the devel­op­ment, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, and pro­duc­tion field­ing of the PA-890 to address the needs of the mil­i­tary as well as the $40 bil­lion com­mer­cial light heli­copter mar­ket.