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Ars Technica is reporting that the Italian-made MH-139 helicopter beat out two other bids to replace the UH-1 after the programme was put out for bidding.
Just in time to avoid the end of the fiscal year, the US Air Force has finally selected a successor to the aged UH-1 Hueys used by the Air Force's nuclear missile security force: the MH-139, a militarized version of the AgustaWestland AW139 from the Italian aerospace and defense company Leonardo. The MH-139 was a joint bid by Leonardo and Boeing and will be built in the United States at Leonardo's facilities in Philadelphia. The award this morning is for $375 million, covering delivery of the first four helicopters. But the overall program could be worth up to $2.4 billion, delivering up to 84 helicopters, as well as training systems and support equipment.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday September 27 2018, @09:55PM (1 child)
Apples to oranges. Thats where the real money is made. Almost intentionally impossible to compare prices, sometimes.
Also UH-60s have mission packs; not really clear how useful it would be without mods. Bad automobile analogy is the truck mfgrs used to sell bare chassis to the RV cabin makers; technically the cheapest heavy duty truck you can buy is a body-less RV chassis, but since a body-less chassis is not street legal comparing its price to stealership driveaway price for a consumer truck.
I was about to suggest a helo wouldn't need the expensive air assault package, but for a nuke security response team that is in fact probably exactly what they need. Something tells me they're probably as heavily armed and modded as an Army helo. The takeoff-ready mission cost of a -60 is likely more than a MH-139.
I figure at least 25% chance you're right, but there are a lot of extra issues to consider.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday September 28 2018, @12:04PM
Good points, and I could be wrong.
The other aspect is that the -60 is already in the Air Force inventory as the Pave Hawk. That doesn't mean absolute compatibility but goes a long ways towards having training and support equipment/procedure/staff already in place, as opposed to bringing in a completely new equipment type to inventory.
It isn't quite clear to me if the training systems and support equipment is covered in the bid or if that's additional costing. And I may have misread - if the initial no-bid price was $4.1 billion for the Hawks then that may instead have been where corruption was at. (I read it that the MH-139 bid had to come down because there were competitors, which now I don't think is accurate.)
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