The first question to Marc Paganini, freshly appointed CEO of American Eurocopter (AEC), is the obvious one. And he answers with a grin: “No, I’m no relation to that other Paganini. I wish I were…” He was referring to 18th-century virtuoso violinist and composer Nicolo Paganini, famed throughout Europe in his day as a performer so hypnotically frenetic that ladies in his audiences swooned. He was rumored to have sold his soul to the devil for his musical powers.
Nothing quite so dramatic takes place in the commercial helicopter world, although in recent years many rotorcraft marketing execs have probably considered selling their souls to boost soggy sales. Depending on how the numbers were broken down in years past, Eurocopter has generally taken the number-one slot in total sales value, with the high-volume, low-dollar-value-per-unit Robinson helicopters outscoring in terms of units sold. Placed alongside the overall flaccid sales its rivals have racked up in recent years, AEC and its parent, the Franco-German consortium Eurocopter, seem poised to take the number-one position both in terms of unit sales and dollar value this year. Numbers traditionally released at the upcoming Heli-Expo show should tell the tale.
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