Analysis 2 The Market for Medium/Heavy Military Rotorcraft 2016-2025

摘要

The medium/heavy military rotorcraft market has entered a period of declining annual production. Though it may be uneven at times, this decline is expected to be long term in nature, and could well last until production ramps up for the U.S. military's Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program in the post-2030 timeframe. From 2004 through 2013, the market experienced strong, even spectacular, levels of growth. Annual output nearly quadrupled during that period. However, the market is now being impacted by declining defense spending in many countries around the world as well as by the end of re-equipment cycles in key markets in North America and Europe. This era of growth peaked in 2013, when manufacturers rolled out 663 medium/heavy rotorcraft for military customers. Production in 2025, the final year of our forecast timeframe, is projected to total only 406 such rotorcraft, a decline of 39 percent. What is happening is that, in many nations around the globe, defense budgets are under increasing pressure as governments look to rein in spending and tackle large budget deficits. As a result of these financial pressures, various military rotorcraft programs are being stretched out, cut back, or even terminated. Even without these trends, the re-equipment cycle in the U.S. would be nearing an end. Within the next 10 years, production will come to a close of CV-22s for the U.S. Air Force, MH-60R Seahawks for the U.S. Navy, and MV-22s for the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy. A few years beyond will see the end of AH-64E and UH-60M production for the U.S. Army. A similar scenario is playing out in Europe, where NH Industries is now rapidly working its way through the huge order book for the multinational and multirole NH90. More importantly, very few major new acquisition programs have emerged that would help keep overall build rates in the medium/heavy military market growing or even stable. Build rates in the early 2020s could be boosted beyond our forecast levels should the U.S. Army's CH-47F Block 2 program become entirely a new-build acquisition program, which is certainly possible. At present, though, we anticipate that the Block 2 effort will be mostly an upgrade program. Sustained annual growth in the medium/heavy military sector may well not recover in any substantial fashion until production gets underway for the FVL program sometime after 2030. Current U.S. Army thinking on the FVL project involves the selection of different platforms to meet the various FVL requirements. This opens the door to the possibility of the wide-ranging program generating multiple opportunities for rotorcraft manufacturers. Ultimately, the FVL effort could result in the selection of anywhere from three to five different platforms, sharing some commonality in cockpits and components, that would collectively comprise the FVL "family." These FVL variants could be expected to benefit not only from sizable orders from the U.S. military to meet domestic re-equipment and modernization needs, but also from considerable sales on the export market. Of course, selection of the FVL contractors is still many years away. And much could change in the meantime. Budgetary difficulties could lead to the postponement or even elimination of the program, resulting in yet another round of U.S. military procurement of updated versions of legacy platforms. Until then, the world's rotorcraft manufacturers will fiercely compete for sales in a declining, though still lucrative, market for medium/heavy military rotorcraft. The medium/heavy military sector is, by far, the largest segment of the rotorcraft market in terms of monetary value. Its decline will mean that manufacturers will increasingly have to look to the civil rotorcraft market, to carefully targeted military sales opportunities, and to aftermarket sales for ways to enhance revenue and market share.