Hartford Business Journal

6 Hartford Business Journal • August 5, 2019 • www.HartfordBusiness.com Reporter's Notebook Gregory Seay | gseay@HartfordBusiness.com Real Estate, Economic Development/Construction, Banking & Finance and Manufacturing MANUFACTURING Joining other CT aeroparts makers, Kaman opens its own customer-support center A short distance from Kaman Corp.'s Bloomfield campus is the aerospace manufac- turer's newest addition to the legacy of one of Connecticut's and America's foremost aeronautics pioneers. The company recently unveiled at its Kaman Aerospace unit, its first dedicated customer-service center at 6 East Newberry Road in Bloomfield. It's a facility that Kaman could very easily have located in Florida, or other locations where the company has operations, Kaman's CEO says. Instead, Kaman chose to join other large Con- necticut aerospace manufacturers with customer-service centers in the state. In 2016, Sikorsky Aircraft opened its new customer-support center in Strat- ford. Neither rivals Pratt & Whitney's support center in East Hartford, where life-sized versions of every commercial jet engine it makes are displayed. Kaman Vice President Eric Reming- ton says $1.3 million was spent outfit- ting the 6,000-square-foot building Kaman has owned since 1983, one of about a dozen commercial-industrial buildings hugging a ¼-mile strip of East Newberry Road. From the outside, the neatly land- scaped building, which was once used for storage, might go unnoticed, but for the blue "Kaman'' nameplate out front. But it's what's happening inside that drew Kaman Chairman, Presi- dent and CEO Neal J. Keating and several dozen Kaman employees and local dignitaries to the facility on a recent sweltering July day. Along with a classroom, meeting/ conference-rooms and lounge space, the customer-service center features Kaman's first-ever flight simulator for its K-MAX heavylift helicopter. The center's main training room brims with K-MAX components for which pilots and mechanics must be most familiar, like their composite rotor blades, drive-shaft and other moving parts, and avionics. K-MAXs are in use worldwide for firefighting, logging, constructing powerlines, emergency response and humanitarian relief, Kaman says. Popular and reliable, K-MAXs often command a premium when resold — demand that prompted Kaman to revive K-MAX production in 2015 after shutting it down years earlier. The K-MAX simulator was as- sembled mostly with off-the-shelf hardware and software, with help from Kaman chief pilot and ex-Navy flyer, Bill Hart, and his three-man pilot team, plus Kaman's information- technology and engineering staffs. A hydraulically driven, replica cockpit — with gauges, control levers and single seat from the K-MAX, and a panoramic viewing screen, with simulated air- and groundscapes and sound effects — gives trainees the sensation of lift-off, landing, hover- ing, turning, even crashing. Some two- to three- dozen mili- tary and civilian pilots and mechan- ics annually come to Bloomfield, for pre-delivery training with Kaman Aerospace, said Darlene Smith, vice president of its Air Vehicles division. Its out-of-town visitors sleep, dine and sightsee in the area during their sometimes weeks-long visits. Previously, Kaman allotted office space on its campus for customer train- ing and support, Smith said, but eventu- ally sought larger, more modern space. Kaman also previously devoted several aircraft in its corporate fleet as trainers. That meant budgeting to repair and maintain its trainer fleet, Smith said. A flight simulator reduces the flight hours required to certify pilots, making it more cost effective. The company never before had a K-MAX simulator, despite that its proprietary counter-rotor technology has been around since aeronautics engineer Charles H. Kaman devised it in the 1940s. He died in 2011 at age 91. In 2015, Kaman revived K-MAX pro- duction in Bloomfield and delivered those first units two years later. Kaman also produces the SH-2, a military helicopter used by a number of foreign governments, including Egypt, Peru, Poland and New Zealand. China has ordered K-MAXs to use in firefighting. Keating said having the customer- service center in Connecticut affirms Kaman's commitment to its custom- ers and the state. DEAL WATCH U-Haul pays $2.5M for Meriden retail site U-Haul's realty development arm paid $2.5 million for a Meriden's Lincoln Plaza shopping center to house a proposed U-Haul transportation-self-storage depot. Amerco Real Estate Co., of Phoenix, Ariz., bought the 54-year-old, 71,000-square-foot plaza on 5.8 acres at 311 W. Main St. (Route 71) from seller MSCI 2007-IQ16 Retail 380 LLC, according to sole broker Colliers International. Save-A-Lot grocery is an anchor tenant. B&F's $2.3M N. Britain buy New Britain's B&F Machine Co. bought for $2.3 million a 92,000-square-foot industrial building in the city. Moore Warehouse LLC sold the building at 370 John Downey Drive, said sole broker Colliers International. B&F specializes in milling, grinding and turning for aeroengine and consumer- parts makers. $475K W. Hartford sale Hartford's Adams Ahern Sign Solution acquired a West Hartford industrial building for $475,000. EDI LLC sold 8,000-square-foot 120 Vanderbilt Ave., according to sole broker Colliers International. The single-tenant, two-story building opened in 1988. Lincoln Plaza, Meriden. 370 John Downey Drive, New Britain. 120 Vanderbilt Ave., West Hartford. PHOTOS | LANNY NAGLER PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED PHOTO | LOOPNET PHOTO | LOOPNET (Clockwise from left) The first K-MAX flight simulator; Kaman Corp. Chairman and CEO Neal Keating (center) with Kaman and Bloomfield officials; Kaman Aerospace's new customer-service center, across from its Bloomfield airfield-corporate campus.

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