US Army aviation leaders say the transformation funded by cancellation of the Boeing/Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche project is still on track, despite issues with three programmes launched since the advanced combat helicopter was terminated in 2004.
The army acknowledges that deployment of Bell’s ARH-70A armed reconnaissance helicopter (ARH) is already almost a year behind schedule. The goal to have the first unit equipped by October 2008 has slipped to July 2009, but officials say the $3.2 billion programme is not yet behind the schedule agreed with the Department of Defense.
Brig Gen Bill Phillips, deputy programme executive officer (PEO) aviation, says the contract awarded in August 2005 was for a 36-month development programme, but the DoD judged this too aggressive and budgeted for 54 months.
"We will be somewhere in between, maybe 45 months, but well within the 54-month baseline," he says.
US Congress has cut fiscal-year 2007 funding for initial ARH production from 38 to 32 helicopters: enough to equip the first 30-aircraft unit, but short of that needed to begin training, says PEO aviation Paul Bogosian. "We hope to redress that in the 2008 budget, or it will affect our ability to train up," he says. Another 120 helicopters could be added to the 368-aircraft ARH programme to equip the National Guard.
The army still hopes to receive its first UH-72A light utility helicopters this year, if the Government Accountability Office (GAO) denies protests against its July selection of the Eurocopter EC145 for the $2 billion-plus, 322-aircraft programme. The EADS subsidiary has been ordered to stop work under the contract, but deliveries could begin in November if the programme goes ahead following a GAO decision by 23 October, Bogosian says.
Separately the Army hopes to select a winner for the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) competition in February and buy its first two aircraft in fiscal year 2007, despite a funding conundrum caused by the US Congress. The committees controlling the defence budget put the money for JCA into two different accounts – the authorisers into the US Army’s budget and appropriators into the US Air Force’s – jeopardising army leadership of the programme.
"I have not seen a situation like this. We will have to resolve where the money resides within the Department of Defense," says the army’s programme executive officer aviation Paul Bogosian. It plans to continue evaluating the Alenia Aeronautica C-27J Spartan and EADS Casa C-295, he says: "We are still conducting the source selection, and the air force is participating."
The project is one of seven major army aviation programmes using funds from the Boeing/Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche’s cancellation. "We were given three years to get them under way – that’s the end of February 2007," says Bogosian. "They are all done with the exception of JCA and we hope to have JCA under contract by then, or close to it."
Source: FlightGlobal.com
