Already several days past its desired deadline for launching low-rate initial production (LRIP) of the CH-53K King Stallion, the Marine Corps says it and Sikorsky are simply waiting for the green light to begin building the heavy lift helicopters.

A decision on whether to begin LRIP was scheduled for March 31, but as of April 3 the Defense Acquisition Board had not made the call, according to Col. Henry Vanderborgt, the Marine Corps heavy lift helicopter program manager.

“We’re waiting for [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] to come out and say what they need to say,” Vanderborgt said at the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space conference in National Harbor, Md.

Long-lead-time materials for the first LRIP aircraft already are purchased under a contract signed a year ago, he said. Inking a deal to begin LRIP also will require Congress to pass a defense authorization bill, but Vanderborgt said the Marine Corps has applied for an exception to the rule that no new-start programs begin under a continuing resolution.

So far Sikorsky has built a ground test vehicle (GTV) and four flight test aircraft. The ground test vehicle has undergone 500 hours of testing. The other four test aircraft have collectively flown 430 hours, Vanderborgt said.

The fifth aircraft – the first of six LRIP airframes currently on contract – will be built at Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] Stratford, Conn. facility. During an eight-month production hiatus work on the CH-53K is being moved from the United Technologies [UTX] – Sikorsky’s previous owner – to Lockheed’s plant.

“The move will require a number of equipment and configuration changes to Sikorsky’s Stratford facility, which will take time to complete and pose risk to the CH-53K production schedule,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a recent report. Mike Torok, Sikorsky’s vice president for the CH-53K program, said the move would create efficiencies by collocating final assembly with production of components like the main rotor blades, gear boxes and others in Connecticut.

The CH-53K will be the largest and most sophisticated helicopter in any military service when it fields and as most clean-sheet development programs do, it has overcome its share of difficulties. Beginning with a cracked main gear box found during early ground testing, the program has struggled to remain on schedule. Extending the LRIP decision to March 31 already was beyond the initial development schedule.

Another batch of deficiencies was pointed out in a initial operational test and evaluation report earlier in 2017. The report highlighted issues with engine flameouts and some components of the main rotor system that have since been fixed. Ironically, the main rotor shaft is so strong that in live-fire testing, an example was shot at and then subsequently broke the testing rig and further delayed the testing schedule while Sikorsky beefed up its equipment, Torok said.

More recently, the massive CH-53K has come under fire for its equally huge price tag. During recent testimony before Congress, Marine Corps Deputy Commandant for Aviation Lt. Gen. Jon Davis aired the figure $131 million as the current per-copy cost of a King Stallion. That is more than the Marine Corps version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter costs.

That figure was backed up by the GAO’s 2016 Selected Acquisition Report published the week of March 27.

The GAO puts total research and development cost of the aircraft at $6.9 billion as of August 2016. Total procurement cost for the 200-aircraft program of record was estimated at $19.2 billion for a total program cost of $26.2 billion.

Divided out, GAO arrived at a program unit cost (PUC) of $131 million each for 200 aircraft, up from $115 million per copy in 2005 when plans were to buy only 156 CH-53Ks. 

Vanderborgt said the Marine Corps does not dispute those figures, though it contends with the method of calculation. Each CH-53Ks costs $131 million if the total program cost is divided by the program or record of 200 aircraft, he said. But that factors non-recurring engineering and other one-time development costs into the price of each aircraft over the program of record.

The actual price of one aircraft as it flies away from Connecticut is around $87 million, Vanderborgt said.

“PUC is not what the airplane costs,” Vanderborgt said. “There are a whole bunch of things that go into there. … the point I’m trying to make here is that number [$131 million] is not just the airplane. It’s a whole bunch of other stuff that goes into getting the airplane fielded.”

There are opportunities for efficiencies and economies of scale that could bring the per-unit cost of a CH-53K down.

“The first time we do something, maybe we’re not so good at doing it,” he said. “The hundredth time or the two-hundredth time you do the same thing, you get better over time. There are process improvements out of aircraft after aircraft. We find more efficient ways to do things. There may be some material changes that occur during a production run, things like that. Those things put together allow the cost to go down as you acquire more units.”

Torok said several allied nations are interested in replacing their legacy Ch-53 fleets with the K-model with Germany being the closest to a formal deal. The Germans plan to buy 41 aircraft, he and Vanderborgt said.