Aviation Week Heli-Expo Show News Briefing - February 24-26, 2008 - (Page 28) AFS Likes Life with Donaldson Missouri’s Aerospace Filtration Systems (Booth 4013) has been a unit of NYSE-listed Donaldson for almost a year now, and AFS chief Mike Scimone couldn’t be happier. “It’s been a very successful marriage,” he says. Donaldson was already in the aerospace filters business, making helicopter engine air inlets and separators for Sikorsky’s new CH-53K, for example, and in AFS got a subsidiary with the engineering chops to make its products better. “We brought a lot to the table,” he says, citing filter design and composite structural experience, and turbine engine inlet 3-D flow and analysis. AFS chief Mike Scimone, with product. “You see a lot more people playing in the industry that don’t entirely understand it.” “They were the right company for us,” Scimone adds. Helo component suppliers are attractive acquisition targets because they’re busy. War in the Middle East, U.S. border police, forest fires and the search for oil have boosted business, attracting people looking for the fast dollar. “You see a lot more people playing in the industry that don’t entirely understand it,” Scimone says. “It’s very hard to explain to the investors how the product realization process happens with the FAA.” A project expected to take two years might well take three, and investors looking for a quick ROI are too often unhappy. Here at Heli-Expo, AFS is talking up the latest in a series of helicopter engine filter STCs, for an inlet barrier system for the MD900 series from MD Helicopters. This follows late 2007’s EASA certification of filters for Bell 206B helicopters and Canadian certification of an engine filter for Turbomeca-powered Eurocopter AS 350s. STCs for filters for the EC 130, Bell 430, and Agusta AW139 are pending. 28 www.aviationweek.com/shownews February 24, 2008 http://www.ila-berlin.com http://www.aviationweek.com/shownews
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