Originally Posted by
Jackonicko
VH-71 remains a better choice for the Presidential helicopter. Bigger cabin, quieter, smoother, faster. What defeated it were shifting goalposts and the addition of more and more kit (including, famously, very heavy safes). The requirement for all of this heavy stuff was suddenly removed to allow VH-92 to win....... There really aren't very many cases where Europe has a much better solution to a requirement than US industry can provide, but you have identified two of them in US101 and KC-30/45/A330MRTT..
This basically accurate. The VH-71 was two knots faster, had better range, but had a crew of four whereas the VH-72's crew is two, and as far as pax go, may actually carry a few more, depending o how the cabin is configured. After the "US101" got the contract, more and more change orders came through requiring more power, extra mods, etc. This meant more costs, naturally, by March 2008 the program cost had reached $400 million per helicopter and by March 2009 was $464.2 million each. Lockheed's management in the program wasn't held in high regard, either. When President Obama came in, he publicly stated that "The helicopter I have now seems perfectly adequate to me". Even though it might cost more overall to terminate the VH-71 and start a new program, this pretty much sealed its fate.
Change orders have been the death of many a program.