Helibras, the wholly owned Brazilian subsidiary of Airbus Helicopters, has awarded a three-year contract to Aircraft Propeller Service (APS) to service the servo actuators of Helibras turbine helicopters. One of the world’s leading propeller MRO organizations, APS is headquartered in Lake Zurich, Illinois, but will carry out the Helibras work at its facility in Atibaia.

From its Itajubá location, Helibras is Brazil’s only helicopter manufacturer and has a domestic market share of nearly 50 percent. APS has a growing relationship with Airbus in the aftermarket sector, and a growing business in the servo actuator sector. The company’s president and CEO, Dan Colbert, commented, “We are fully committed to bringing the APS brand of service quality to the helicopter market, and this latest contract award from Helibras will enable us to further demonstrate the value proposition our organization delivers with each and every repair.”

Underlining this growth area for the company, last year it secured a license from UTC Aerospace Systems to perform repair work on the main and tail rotor servo actuators for Airbus Helicopters products that operate in Brazil. It is authorized to perform Level III repairs of servo actuators for the Squirrel/Fennec and Dauphin/Panther families. Additionally, in early 2017 APS concluded a servo actuator service deal with Leonardo and earlier this month announced that it had completed its 100th service for AW109 servo actuators. The AS9100-certified company has made significant investment in advanced testing equipment to support this work, and its technicians received training at the OEM’s facilities in Italy.