DEBORAH LEE JAMES
WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- The Air Force announced its intent to
award a competitive contract for a new rescue helicopter to carry out the
personnel recovery mission.
Due to the criticality of this mission, the Air Force will
realign about $430 million from other Air Force priorities beyond fiscal year
2014 through 2019 in order to award the Combat Rescue Helicopter (CRH) contract
to United Technologies’ Sikorsky.
“Moving forward with the CRH contract award protects a good
competitive price and effectively uses the $334 million Congress appropriated
for the program,” said Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James.
In light of the fiscal situation, the Air Force has made
many tough choices to balance strategy and budget.
“Over the last 10 years, the Air Force has discussed
upgrading the platform that performs this sacred mission for all DoD personnel
who go into harm's way,” said James. “This mission is part of the military
ethos, and the Air Force is committed to providing it.”
The contract is expected to be signed not later than the end
of June 2014. Before moving forward with the contract, the program must
complete a Milestone B review including independent cost assessments. In order
to enable this timeline, Sikorsky must also agree to extend its pricing through
June.
“The competitive price and the funding provided by Congress
will allow us to award the CRH contract, but we could still face significant
challenges to keeping this effort on track,” said James. “We will need to work with Congress
throughout 2015 budget deliberations, and if the FY16 DoD budget drops back to
sequestration levels, this program, along with many others, will need to be
reevaluated.”
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