The design process for aircraft is one of the main digital disruptions in the aerospace sector. The CH-53K King Stallion helicopter that Sikorsky is developing for the U.S. Marine Corps is the Lockheed Martin subsidiary’s first production aircraft built with a completely digital, paperless design, said Andreas Bernhard, the helicopter’s chief engineer at Sikorsky. Looking ahead to the 2020s, Bernhard predicted, “our most profitable product is no longer going to be the Black Hawk, but the CH-53K.” New technologies on the CH-53K also include composite rotor blades that he said “generate enough lift to carry an empty Black Hawk,” a transmission with improved power density than previous generation Sikorsky helicopters, and digital engine controls in the cockpit.
