By Geoff Fein
The Coast Guard is expecting to release a request for proposals for up to nine HC-144 Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) in the next month, the first contract for that platform that will not fall under the previous Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS) effort.
Under the current ICGS contract, the European Aeronautical Defence and Space Co. supplies the airframe and ICGS partner Lockheed Martin [LMT] is in charge of missionizing the aircraft.
The HC-144 is built at an EADS facility in Spain.
ICGS is a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman [NOC]. In April 2007, the Coast Guard announced it was severing its ties with ICGS effective January 2011.
With the Coast Guard assuming the role of Lead Systems Integrator (LSI) for its Deepwater effort, the next HC-144 RFP could spur a number of companies to compete for the MPA, Capt. Jim Martin, deputy aviation program manager, told Defense Daily earlier this week.
“We have a couple of different vendors interested in competing for that,” he said.
Additionally, there would be options on the contract for the next few years, hopefully, to get the Coast Guard to 20 total aircraft before the service would have to go back to the Department of Homeland Security, Martin said.
“The service would have to go back to DHS for an acquisition decision event (ADE 3) to allow for full-rate production and to build out the rest of the fleet size of 36,” he added.
Although it might be a concern to some that a contractor other than EADS could win the competition to build the next buy of HC-144s, Martin noted the Coast Guard took measures to ensure it got the same aircraft no matter who built it.
“What we did, we completed a standardization study and it [said it] has to be this particular aircraft,” he added.
CASA, a division of EADS, has a part number for the aircraft that makes the HC-144 Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) a unique Coast Guard version of the CASA 235, Martin explained.
“The competition is what we call, ‘an other than full and open brand name competition.’ So they will have to provide us the Coast Guard version of the CASA 235,” he said. “What is being competed is some of the project management functions associated with that.”
The Coast Guard is also in the process of determining how it will handle missionization of the MPA, an effort currently managed by Lockheed Martin.
“We haven’t determined that yet. That’s the second part of that system that we need to figure out–how we become the LSI on that,” Martin said. “We are still pursuing the strategy for how we would do that.”
He added that the Coast Guard hopes to have a decision in the next couple of months as to whether it would continue some sole source purchase with Lockheed Martin or pursue an alternative acquisition strategy.
“We’re still two to four months away from a decision on a future acquisition strategy. A RFP for that would come later,” Martin said.
The Coast Guard also anticipates negotiating for three additional HC-144s under the current ICGS contract, Martin noted.
“[Those] will be under contract by this summer,” he said. “That will mark Coast Guard separation from ICGS with this asset acquisition.”
Those three aircraft would be number 12, 13 and 14, Martin added.