Vertical Flight Society Recognizes Sikorsky For Technological Innovations

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Individuals and teams from Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company were recognized with several awards from the Vertical Flight Society during the 75th Annual Forum & Technology display. This year’s awards mark nearly three-quarters of a century of celebrating rotorcraft innovation. Sikorsky’s founder, Igor Sikorsky, was named one of the first Honorary Fellows during the first annual dinner of the American Helicopter Society in 1944.

“Sikorsky is honored by the Vertical Flight Society’s recognition of our talented workforce whose technological innovations are making helicopters safer, faster and more intelligent,” said Mike Ambrose, Vice President of Engineering & Technology at Sikorsky. “We are proud to be at the forefront of many emerging technologies and we look forward to continuing to develop and advance the future of vertical flight.”

During its Annual Forum, the Vertical Flight Society recognized the following Sikorsky individuals and teams:

• Bill Fell, Senior Experimental Test Pilot – recipient of the Frederick L. Feinberg Award for demonstrating outstanding skills as a vertical flight pilot. Fell is the primary test pilot for X2 Technology aircraft including both the S-97 RAIDER and SB>1 DEFIANT helicopters.
• William Welsh, Technical Fellow, Sikorsky — named an Honorary Fellow by the Vertical Flight Society for more than three decades of leadership within the VFS and state-of-the-art advancements in the active control of noise and vibration in helicopters.
• Darryl Toni, Senior Fellow, Sikorsky — named a Technical Fellow by the Vertical Flight Society for more than three decades as a team leader developing, flight demonstrating and producing advanced composite helicopter airframe structures.
• Nicholas D. Lappos, Senior Fellow, Sikorsky– select for the 39th Annual Alexander A. Nikolsky Honorary Lectureship. Lappos’ lecture is entitled, “Design advantages of an Integrated Cyber-Physical Aircraft.”
• S-70i Chilean Air Force Program Engineering Team — recipient of the Leonardo International Fellowship Award for significant contributions to international vertical flight cooperation. Sikorsky manufacturing and test teams in Stratford, Connecticut and PZL Mielec, Poland collaborated closely with the Chilean Air Force (Fuerza Aérea de Chile) to design, develop, test, qualify and deliver six highly-configured search and rescue S-70i™ Black Hawk® helicopters to Chile in less than two years.
• FARDS Demonstration Gear Box Development Team —recipient of the Robert L. Pinckney Award for notable achievement in manufacturing research and development for vertical flight aircraft or components. Sikorsky, its suppliers and the U.S. Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation and Missiles Center’s Aviation Development Directorate (ADD) developed drive system technologies with the performance and cost characteristics necessary to enable the Army’s Future Vertical Lift and Black Hawk Upgrade platforms.
• CH-53K Flight Control System Team — recipient of the Harry T. Jensen Award for an outstanding contribution to the improvement of reliability, maintainability, safety or logistics support through improved design or technical achievement. The CH-53K Flight Control System Team developed and successfully flight demonstrated a low-speed control system that significantly reduces pilot workload while operating in Degraded Visual Environments (DVE).

About Lockheed Martin

Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 105,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.