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The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has rebuffed a pre-contract-award protest that Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin [LMT] company, had filed over the Air Force’s UH-1N Huey helicopter replacement program.
The “GAO concluded that the protest grounds were either without merit, untimely, or in some cases, premature,” GAO attorney Kenneth Patton said in a statement late May 22.
The GAO plans to publicly release a formal decision document in the next few weeks, after it has removed sensitive information.
In its own statement on the decision, Sikorsky did not rule out further legal action, saying it is “currently reviewing our options to determine our next steps.”
Sikorsky submitted the protest in February, asserting that the Air Force expects the winning bidder to hand over too much intellectual property (Defense Daily, Feb. 14).
Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said the GAO’s decision will allow service to proceed with awarding a contract for a new helicopter before the current fiscal year ends Sept. 30.
“The Air Force remains committed to delivering a UH-1N replacement as soon as possible,” Stefanek said.
The Air Force plans to buy 84 helicopters to replace its aging Huey fleet. The new helicopter will protect intercontinental ballistic missile fields in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming and provide emergency transport to support continuity-of-government operations in Washington, D.C.
Sikorsky is offering the HH-60U, a variant of the UH-60M Black Hawk. Other bidders include Boeing [BA], whose MH-139 is based on Leonardo’s AW139, and Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC), which proposes to upgrade Army UH-60A Black Hawks into UH-60L Force Hawks.
“We remain confident the Sikorsky HH-60U offering is the strongest, most capable and only technically compliant solution for the UH-1N Huey replacement program,” Sikorsky said.
