A short term continuing resolution (CR) would have little impact on the Army’s foremost acquisition priority, the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) meant to increase the range and performance of UH-60 Black Hawk and AH-64 Apache helicopters, program officials said Monday.
Photo: DoD
Although the service kicked off the program in earnest on Sept. 24, when it released a Request for Proposals for the preliminary design phase of the competition, ITEP is not considered a new start program, said Army Lt. Col. Curt Kuetemeyer, the ITEP product manager. Therefore, it would receive funding even if Congress passes a CR, which typically prohibits money for new starts.
“Second order effects may eventually affect us if we have a longer term shutdown or if it [a continuing resolution] lasts awhile and other priorities are more important to the Army, but right now it won’t have a direct impact,” he told reporters during a conference call.
ITEP is planned to be a 3,000 shaft horsepower engine that will allow Apaches and Black Hawks to operate in higher and hotter conditions–6,000 feet elevations and 95 degree Fahrenheit temperatures–than the T700 engines currently in those platforms.
“More engine power for the Black Hawk and the Apache means further range, more time on the objective [and] more troops or equipment carried per mission, all resulting in more lethal, more effective missions,” Kuetemeyer said.
The Army intends to award preliminary design contracts to up to two vendors, which will then produce technical data and drawings. An important part of the preliminary design review phase will be working with the companies to better define where the service can make tradeoffs for performance, fuel efficiency and reliability, he said. Proposals are due Nov. 9.
The service then will downselect to a single competitor during the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase that is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2018. During the EMD phase, the ITEP vendor will have to qualify its engine for Block C Apaches, medical evacuation Black Hawks and the UH-60M model, he said. Low-rate production of the engine is slated to start in 2024.
Probable contenders include General Electric [GE] and a Pratt & Whitney[UTX]-Honeywell [HON] joint venture called Advanced Turbine Engine Company (ATEC). Those companies participated in a technology development program called Advanced Affordable Turbine Engine (AATE), which was a precursor to ITEP meant to prove that companies could design a 3,000 shaft horsepower engine that met the Army’s volume and weight constraints, said Rich Kretzschmar, the Army’s project manager for Improved Turbine Engine and Future Vertical Lift.
“We fully expect other engine vendors that didn’t participate in AATE to participate in this program as well,” he said. “We feel confident that they can then mature that technology toward the specific requirements that we have for ITEP and then get to production.”
The Army plans to buy 6,215 ITEP engines, but production numbers could grow even further if it is chosen for Future Vertical Lift, a family of rotorcraft that is planned to begin replacing the Army’s current helicopter fleet in the mid 2030s. Kuetemeyer noted that FVL requirements have not been finalized, meaning that the service could opt for a different engine.