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Sikorsky Pitches Area 51 Security Helicopters to Guard ICBMs
[DefenseOne] How can the U.S. Air Force finally end its decade-plus quest to replace the 1960s-era Huey helicopters that guard its midwestern ICBM fields? Sikorsky has a new pitch: buy more of the Black Hawk variant that supports Area 51. Formally designated the HH-60U, the helicopter already flies in the Air Force’s "Ghost Squadron," a unit that supports missions at the Nevada Test and Training Range and the top-secret Air Force testing base near Groom Lake known as Area 51. "For us, obviously, that makes it a low-risk approach; the fact that they have three of these and the fact that we’ve already integrated these various components into the aircraft," Sam Mehta, president of Sikorsky defense system and services, said in an interview. Boeing, Leonardo, Bell, and Airbus are among the other companies likely to compete for a contract to build 84 helicopters. In addition to guarding missile fields, some of the new helicopters would be staged in Washington to evacuate politicians and key government officials if catastrophe struck. The Air Force has been trying to replace the UH-1 Huey for more than a decade. In 2011, it actually moved to buy Black Hawks for the nuclear-security mission, but eventually shelved that plan in favor of competition. The latest delay came last month, when service officials said they would revise a request for proposals that some companies said would have kept them from bidding. Posted by: Skidmark 2017-03-04 |
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