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. January 12, 2005
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Army Abandons UH-60M Remanufacture, Opts For New Airframes

Defense Daily:

By Amy Butler
Army officials have decided to abandon an earlier plan to refurbish hundreds of aging UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and instead order new aircraft, a move that will demand a shift of nearly $3.5 billion in the service's upcoming budget submission for Congress.

The shift in strategy will mean a massive order of 1,213 new UH-60M helicopters from Stratford, Conn.-based Sikorsky, which is owned by United Technologies [UTX].

The order would come at a tense time for the helicopter market. Sikorsky is locked in a heated battle with a Lockheed Martin [LMT]-led team for a contract to build the next-generation presidential transport helicopter known as Marine One. Navy officials expect to announce the winner of that deal later this month.

Pentagon officials cite a cost difference of 13 percent between remanufacturing the older UH-60s and purchasing new helicopters, prompting officials to bite the bullet and buy the new models, a November draft of program budget decision (PBD) No. 701 said. Black Hawks are in heavy use supporting operations around the globe, especially those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By Ann Roosevelt
The Army's top acquisition official, the aviation branch chief and the aviation task force director are challenging contractors and the aviation community to move faster to modernize and transform the fixed-wing and rotorcraft fleet while supporting combat units.

"If you thought last year was busy and fast, this year will be busier and faster," Claude Bolton, the Army acquisition chief, told aviators and industry officials at the Association of the U.S. Army's annual Aviation Symposium in Arlington, Va., last week.

Brig. Gen. E.J. Sinclair, commanding general of the Army Aviation Center and Ft. Rucker, said, "we're well into implementation" of the modernization plan. "We're going fast. We're being encouraged to go faster and faster."

The branch has moved quickly to apply $14.9 billion in congressionally approved funding initially slated for the Boeing [BA]- Sikorsky [UTX] RAH-Comanche armed reconnaissance helicopter, which was terminated in February (Defense Daily, Feb. 24). Instead of buying 121 Comanches, the service opted to modernize the fleet, add survivability equipment and buy more helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles.