By Marina Malenic
Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Sikorsky Aircraft, a division of United Technologies Corp. [UTX], have announced a teaming agreement for the competition to build a replacement Air Force combat, search and rescue (CSAR) helicopter fleet.
Company representatives yesterday told reporters that they plan to offer a modified UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter they say will be a better fit for the new, leaner set of requirements announced by the Pentagon earlier this year.
Under the arrangement, Sikorsky will be the prime contractor and Lockheed Martin will provide major subsystems.
By offering a modified version of a helicopter already in production, the contractors say they can provide a low-cost option to the Air Force, according to Dan Spoor, aviation systems vice president at Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Sensors.
“The trend at the Pentagon is to seek low-risk solutions and off-the-shelf capability,” Spoor told reporters during a conference call.
A somewhat advanced version of the HH-60M for the CSAR program would have the same airframe but special sensors, communications suites and other capability, depending on what the service wants, Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin officials said.
The companies are also together pursuing the presidential helicopter replacement program. Rivals Boeing [BA] and AgustaWestland could also submit a bid on the CSAR contract, industry sources have said.
The Air Force earlier this year revived plans to purchase a new rescue helicopter, with its efforts now focused on procuring a far less costly platform than initially expected. Officials have said that the Pentagon leadership is now fully behind a plan to replace the Air Force’s aging Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters. Defense Secretary Robert Gates last year canceled the CSAR-X fleet replacement program and asked the Joint Staff to reexamine the requirement for a new platform.
The Pentagon in February issued an initial request for information (RFI) to industry. The plan calls for a contract award in 2012. The Air Force wants eight new helicopters ready to deploy by late 2015, but the RFI indicates no timeline for replacing all of the approximately 100 HH-60Gs in the fleet.
A rescue variant of Boeing’s HH-47 Chinook was chosen by the Air Force for the CSAR-X contract award in 2006, but the Government Accountability Office found fault with the service’s evaluation methodology. Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky had also bid for the contract separately, Lockheed Martin in partnership at the time with AgustaWestland, a division of Italy’s Finmeccanica.
Air Force officials have also said in recent months that they hope to have “high commonality” between their CSAR and Common Vertical Lift Support Platform (CVLSP) to save on development costs (Defense Daily, March 31).
The CVLSP helicopters perform missile field security missions and VIP transport in the Washington area. The CVLSP effort had been part of CSAR-X procurement. However, the service divided the efforts in 2005. Earlier this year, a top Air Force acquisition official indicated that recombining the two programs is still a possibility (Defense Daily, Feb. 24).
Spoor said the Lockheed Martin-Sikorsky teaming agreement would extend to CVLSP. He noted that the missions are clearly different and that the CVLSP offering could be a “slightly downgraded” CSAR capability.