ATI 425® Titanium Adopted For Commercial Aerospace Application

Contact:
Dan L. Greenfield
(412) 394-3004

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania -- February 25, 2008 --Allegheny Technologies Incorporated announced today that its proprietary titanium alloy, ATI 425®, has been adopted for use in a new prototype replacement tail rotor blade manufactured by Tempe, Arizona-based Van Horn Aviation (VHA) for use on commercial helicopters.

Still under development, the VHA 206 series replacement tail rotor blade features a titanium root fitting and abrasion strip made from ATI 425 titanium. "As part of the development, VHA is working with ATI and will act as a commercial aerospace launch customer for their ATI 425 titanium alloy," says VHA President James Van Horn. "We selected ATI 425 titanium for two reasons - availability of both the sheet and plate forms, and the cold formability of the product. The sheet is used for the abrasion strip on the new tail rotor blade. The blade has a tapered tip that requires the abrasion strip to bend 20 degrees near the tip to follow the airfoil contour. Cold formability will permit us to fabricate the abrasion strip at a cost that will make our blade more competitive from a price standpoint.

"The VHA 206 series replacement tail rotor blade is based on our highly successful UH-1H Huey replacement tail rotor blade, which received Supplemental Type Certification (STC) and Parts Manufacture Approval (PMA) approval in May 2007," Van Horn said. "Using advanced carbon fiber construction techniques, we were able to increase the life of our UH-1H tail rotor blade versus the OEM's blade. By using those same techniques, we anticipate offering the VHA 206 series tail rotor blade with a life limit of 3,000 hours; 500 hours more than the OEM blade."

Tempe, Arizona-based Van Horn Aviation (VHA) specializes in the design, certification, and manufacturing of aftermarket dynamic components for various rotorcraft. VHA will debut the prototype of its all-new composite tail rotor blade at Heli-Expo 2008 in Houston, TexasFebruary 24-26 at booth number 3307. Development and testing of the 206 series tail rotor blade will continue through 2008, with STC approval anticipated by the first quarter of 2009.

ATI 425 titanium has also been selected for other aerospace applications. In November of 2007, ATI announced that the proprietary titanium alloy was selected for use in the Mars Lander scheduled to land on the planet in May of this year.

Building the World's Best Specialty Metals Company™

Allegheny Technologies Incorporated is one of the largest and most diversified specialty metals producers in the world with revenues of $5.5 billion during 2007. ATI has approximately 9,700 full-time employees world-wide who use innovative technologies to offer growing global markets a wide range of specialty metals solutions. Our major markets are aerospace and defense, chemical process industry/oil and gas, electrical energy, medical, automotive, food equipment and appliance, machine and cutting tools, and construction and mining. Our products include titanium and titanium alloys, nickel-based alloys and superalloys, stainless and specialty steels, zirconium, hafnium, and niobium, tungsten materials, grain-oriented silicon electrical steel and tool steels, and forgings and castings. The Allegheny Technologies website is www.alleghenytechnologies.com.

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