Both civil and defense helicopters consume large quantities of Hexcel’s Prepregs, adhesives, honeycombs and Engineered Core components. Many structural parts are manufactured from Prepreg, including the rear beam, fuselage and main rotor components.
 
The defense helicopters, NH90 and the Tiger, are complete composite structures with carbon/glass hybrid Prepreg engine fairings, glass Prepreg blades and a structure (fuselage, cockpit and tail boom) built in 180°C curing carbon Prepreg.
 
The Eurocopter EC 135 has a fully shrouded fan and tail boom (fenestron) built with Hexcel’s 180°C self-adhesive, self-extinguishing Prepreg with a carbon/glass hybrid woven reinforcement.Rotor blades for the EH101, Lynx and Sea King helicopters contain a special process honeycomb core for low weight and superior stiffness. This is machined to customer requirements on Hexcel’s five-axis twin headed profiler.
 
In the USA, Hexcel supplies to most major US helicopter programs, including the Comanche and the Apache.
 

1 Rotor Blades: Prepregs/carbon/glass honeycombs. Machined Nomex® cores. Redux® adhesives
2 Rotor Hub: Carbon epoxy Prepregs 
3 Glazing Bars: Epoxy carbon/glass Prepregs
4 Flooring: Fibrelam® panels
5 Seats and Interior Fittings: Glass Prepregs/fabricated panel material
6 Engine/body Fairings and Access Panels: Epoxy/BMI glass/carbon/aramid Prepregs
7 Fuselage: Carbon and glass Prepregs. Honeycomb
8 Main and Cargo Doors: Epoxy carbon/glass Prepreg, honeycomb and Redux® adhesive
9 Boom and Tail Section: Epoxy carbon/glass Prepreg, honeycomb and Redux® adhesive
10 Horizontal Stabilisers: Epoxy glass/carbon/aramid Prepregs
11 Fuselage Panels: Epoxy carbon/glass Prepreg, Nomex® honeycomb and Redux® adhesives

 
This drawing is generic, to allow the maximum number of potential composite applications to be identified. The drawing is not intended to represent a specific helicopter.