Those reports that circulated two weeks ago were marketing bumf from the
PR departments of Bell and Lockheed - literally exact copy from the marketing departments. The USCG awarded the massive Deepwater contract to Lockheed - call that the big contract. This will allow new ships, shore facilities, communications, and eventually some helicopters. The Lockheed team chose Bell a while back - the US Coast Guard has not - and so when the big contract was let, Bell dove in and announced the 139 "selection".
In fact, the 139 was switched into the game about 2 days before the announcement of the big contract, because the 609 was a clear nogo, the USCG has an aversion to vapour helicopters, and it was the previous "selection" according to the fiction writers in Texas.
USCG Procurement officers are quite willing to tell the world that THEY will select the helicopter when the time comes, it is not an automatic right given to the winner of the big contract. All that has been decided is that the HH-60J's will get new avionics, since the USCG loves them. Any new helicopters are perhaps 7 to 10 years off, and likely to be the source of a new competition within the big contract.
Note in all the hype, no Coast Guard people said anything about what type new helicopters, let alone unproven 139's (is BA or AB?) The fat lady has yet to even go on stage.
Watch big doings between the smaller ship-based solutions (new H-60's, AB-139, EC-355, and even NH-90) and the bigger land-based (S-92, EH-101) when battle lines are drawn.
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