Kaman Corporation is an American

aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and ast ...

company, with headquarters in

Bloomfield, Connecticut Bloomfield is a suburb of Hartford in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The town's population was 21,535 at the 2020 census. Bloomfield is best known as the headquarters of healthcare services company Cigna. History Originally lan ...

. It was founded in 1945 by Charles Kaman. During the first ten years the company operated exclusively as a designer and manufacturer of several

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...

s that set world records and achieved many aviation firsts. In 1956, Kaman began to diversify as an aerospace subcontractor of

McDonnell Douglas McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own merger with Boeing in 1997, it ...

Grumman The Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, later Grumman Aerospace Corporation, was a 20th century American producer of military and civilian aircraft. Founded on December 6, 1929, by Leroy Grumman and his business partners, it merged in 1994 ...

, and others. In the mid-1960s Kaman diversified outside of the aerospace industry, using the expertise Kaman had gained in

composite material A composite material (also called a composition material or shortened to composite, which is the common name) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or ...

s and the end of the need for skilled woodworkers to craft wooden rotor blades. Charles Kaman, a

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

ist as well as an aerospace pioneer, worked with his engineers and other musicians to create the round-backed, composite-body

Ovation guitar The Ovation Guitar Company is a manufacturer of string instruments. Ovation primarily manufactures steel-string acoustic guitars (both 6 and 12-string versions) and nylon-string guitars, often with pickups for electric amplification. In 2015, ...

, which led to the eventual creation of Kaman Music (now

KMCMusicorp KMC Music is an owner and distributor of several brands of musical instruments. The company is currently a subsidiary of Canadian corporate group Exertis , JAM. History The company began as Kaman Music Corporation , a part of the Kaman Corpora ...

). Kaman Music was an independent distributor of musical instruments and accessories, and a major producer of guitars and guitar parts and accessories.

History

Charles Kaman founded the company in December 1945 with $2,000 of capital and his invention of the servo-flap controlled rotor. ; January 15, 1947 : K-125 - Kaman's first helicopter; Kaman selected an intermeshed contrarotating twin rotor design. ; July 1949 : K-225 - An improved version of the K-125; the U.S. Navy bought two and the U.S. Coast Guard one for $25,000 each. Later, they received the H-22 designation. ; December 1951 : A modified K-225 equipped with a Boeing 502 (YT50) turboshaft engine becomes the world's first

gas turbine A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the directio ...

powered helicopter. This aircraft is now at the Smithsonian Institution's

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the N ...

. ; 1953 : Kaman produced the first electrically-powered

drone Drone most commonly refers to: * Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg * Unmanned aerial vehicle * Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft * Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to: ...

. ; April 1953 : Ordered for the U.S. Marine Corps, the HOK-1 first flies; Air Force version was the H-43A Huskie. ; 1954 : K-16 A V/STOL designed around a rotoprop. ; March 1954 : A modified Kaman HTK-1 becomes the world's first twin-turbine powered helicopter. ; September, 1956 : HH-43 Huskie — A variant of the OH-43, equipped with a Lycoming T-53 gas turbine engine. ; July 1957 : QH-43 - A HTK-1 modified as a

UAV An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...

. : In the late 1950s, Kaman built the

Kaman K-17 The Kaman K-17 was a two-seat experimental helicopter built by Kaman in the late 1950s. It used a cold-jet rotor system. Specifications References {{Kaman aircraft 1950s United States helicopters K-225 1950s United States experimen ...

, an experimental

tip jet A tip jet is a jet nozzle at the tip of some helicopter rotor blades, used to spin the rotor, much like a Catherine wheel firework. Tip jets replace the normal shaft drive and have the advantage of placing no torque on the airframe, thus not re ...

powered helicopter. using a

Blackburn Aircraft Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and north-n ...

-built Turbomeca Turmo turbine powering a compressor delivering cold air to the rotor tips. ; July 2, 1959 : The HU2K-1, selected by the U.S. Navy as a general purpose naval helicopter, makes its first flight. It enters service as the UH-2A Seasprite in 1962. ; March 1960 : Kaman develops and flies the first all-composite main rotor blade. : In October 1961 the H-43 Huskie set an altitude record of and rate of climb records.

Anton Flettner Anton Flettner (November 1, 1885 – December 29, 1961) was a German aviation engineer and inventor. Born in Eddersheim (today a district of Hattersheim am Main), Flettner made important contributions to airplane, helicopter, vessel, and automob ...

who emigrated to the United States and became the chief designer for Kaman Aircraft, creating the Kaman HH-43 Huskie. : During the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Huskie flew more rescue missions than all other aircraft combined, with the best safety record of any U.S. military aircraft. ; 1962 : UH-2A / B production begins. ; January 1964 : First flight of Kaman's experimental

Convertiplane A convertiplane is defined by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI or World Air Sports Federation) as an aircraft which uses rotor power for vertical takeoff and landing ( VTOL) and converts to fixed-wing lift in normal flight. In th ...

equipped with a GE J-85 turbojet engine and wings from a

Beechcraft Queen Air The Beechcraft Queen Air is a twin-engined light aircraft produced by Beechcraft in several versions from 1960 to 1978. Based upon the Twin Bonanza, with which it shared key components such as wings, engines, and tail surfaces, but featuring ...

. The aircraft achieves speeds of over 320 km/h. ; 1965 : Tomahawk — A Seasprite modified with stub wings and a pair of twin guns side-by-side under the nose. Kaman's proposal for the U.S. Army 's interim gunship helicopter between the AAFSS (AH-56) and AAH (AH-64) competitions. Lost to the Bell 209 ( AH-1 HueyCobra). : Due to the limited power of its single engine, the Seasprites are modified for the U.S. Navy into twin-turbine helicopters. ; 1969 : U.S. Navy begins

Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System The Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System (LAMPS) is the United States Navy's program that develops crewed helicopters to assist the surface fleet in anti-submarine warfare. The purpose of LAMPS is to scout outside the limits of a fleet's radar an ...

(LAMPS) development to obtain an onboard helicopter for escort ships. ; 1971 : SAVER — The Stowable Aircrew Vehicle Escape Rotoseat is the first jet-powered autogyro with telescoping rotor blades. ; May 1973 : SH-2F Seasprite — The LAMPS Mk I enters U.S. Navy service. ; July 1976 : Kaman designs and begins manufacturing the K-747 blade, the world's first production all-composite rotor blade for the

Bell AH-1 Cobra The Bell AH-1 Cobra is a single-engined attack helicopter developed and manufactured by the American rotorcraft manufacturer Bell Helicopter. A member of the prolific Huey family, the AH-1 is also referred to as the HueyCobra or Snake. The ...

helicopter. Total production exceeds 4,000 blades. ; January 1991 : Magic Lantern, a new laser-based mine countermeasures system, is deployed in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm. It is highly successful in locating mines. ; February 1993 :

SH-2G Super Seasprite The Kaman SH-2G Super Seasprite is an American ship-based helicopter with anti-submarine, anti-surface threat capability, including over-the-horizon targeting. This aircraft extends and increases shipboard sensor and weapon capabilities against ...

— The new version of the Seasprite, with new avionics, mission electronics, and GE T-700 engines, enters

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

service. ; August 1994 : K-1200 K-MAX — a purpose-built helicopter with

intermeshing rotors Intermeshing rotors on a helicopter are a set of two rotors turning in opposite directions, with each rotor mast mounted with a slight angle to the other, in a transversely symmetrical manner, so that the blades intermesh without colliding. ...

specializing in external load operations. ; November 1998 : The Egyptian Air Force accepts delivery of its 10th SH-2G Super Seasprite for use in anti-submarine warfare missions, completing the order and becoming the first international customer to operate the aircraft. ; August 1999 : New Zealand approves purchase of SH-2G(NZ). ; January 2000 : Australian SH-2G(A) begins initial flight testing. ; January 2001 : U.S. federal government purchases 5 K-MAX for Peru. ; October 2002 : The 5 Peruvian K-MAX are transferred to the Colombian Army where they are still in service as of 2008. ; June 2008 : All Royal Australian Navy SH-2G Seasprite helicopters are withdrawn from service and returned to supplier as budget blew-out and contract specifications unable to be met. : Kaman acquires Brookhouse Holdings Limited, a world leading composite development company based in the United Kingdom, and renames it Kaman Composites UK Ltd. ; January 31, 2011 : Charles Kaman, founder of Kaman Aircraft, died in

. ; November 2015 : Kaman announces that it was acquiring GRW Bearing GmbH for $142.9 million. GRW designs and manufactures precision ball bearings, and has production facilities in Europe. ;May 2022 : Kaman announced it had acquired

Parker-Hannifin Parker Hannifin Corporation, originally Parker Appliance Company, usually referred to as just Parker, is an American corporation specializing in motion and control technologies. Its corporate headquarters are in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, in Greater ...

's aircraft wheel and brake division for $440 million US.

Products

* K-16B * K-125 * K-190 * K-225 * K-1125 *

Kaman HH-43 Huskie The Kaman HH-43 Huskie is a helicopter with intermeshing rotors used by the United States Air Force, the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps from the 1950s until the 1970s. It was primarily used for aircraft firefighting a ...

/HOK/HUK *

Kaman SH-2 Seasprite The Kaman SH-2 Seasprite is a ship-based helicopter originally developed and produced by American manufacturer Kaman Aircraft Corporation. It has been typically used as a compact and fast-moving rotorcraft for utility and anti-submarine warfa ...

* Kaman SH-2G Super Seasprite * Kaman K-1200 K-Max *

Kaman KSA-100 SAVER __NOTOC__ The Kaman KSA-100 SAVER (Stowable Aircrew Vehicle Escape Rotorseat) is an American aircraft-stowable gyroplane An autogyro (from Greek and , "self-turning"), also known as a ''gyroplane'', is a type of rotorcraft that uses an unpowere ...

References

External links

Kaman Corporation

Kaman Aerospace
*
Bill Kaman Interview - NAMM Oral History Library (2007)
{{Coord, 41.859142, -72.700471, display=title Bloomfield, Connecticut Companies based in Hartford County, Connecticut Defense companies of the United States Helicopter manufacturers of the United States