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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 All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:28PM (5 children)
Data from Wikipedia and TFA.
Unit cost UH-60: 21.3 million (2012 dollars average expenditure per Wikipedia).
Unit cost MH-139: 28.3 million (2.2 billion divided by 84) down from original projection of over 4 billion.
So the Air Force gets to celebrate a win of only $588 million of wasteage, assuming the Blackhawk could have fulfilled the mission parameters (which if it is in competition I assume it could) but at average configuration acquisition price.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:34PM
What is really lovely is reading the articles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:54PM (1 child)
Obviously the UH-60 no longer fulfills the mission parameters, thus the competition. And if you had read the article you would know this.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:40PM
Yep. And if you read TFA closer you would have read that it was the UH-1 which no longer fulfills the mission parameters, not the Blackhawk. Since the Blackhawk was in the competition it met the the first round of bid requirements, as it is stupidly wasted money to put up something that can't meet (at least) initial specifications. In fact there were bids for both new UH-60s from Sikorski and also refurbed UH-60s [sncorp.com] with improved capabilities from a different company. There is no mention of the competitors actual bid prices and no information that price was the sole determinant of the winner.
And I'll grant that it was a Congressman who said this and is therefore suspect, but in this article from The Hill from 2016 [rollcall.com] it was suggested that instead of bidding outright they should have just no-bid bought Blackhawks. But re-read this paragraph in particular from TFA:
(Bolding mine).
In fact, the compeitition did not pay off for the American public, since as I point out above the Air Force will ultimately pay more than they could have.
Unless, AC, you have a different document that truly shows that the UH-60 couldn't fulfill the mission when originally it certainly seemed like it could have. (And then.... what does that mean - was bullshit added to the program requirements to make sure the right company won?)
This sig for rent.
(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.)
This sig for rent.