https://www.defensenews.com/industry...r-future-helo/
Sikorsky won’t sue US Army after GAO rejected protest over future helo
WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky said Tuesday it won’t sue the U.S. Army after the
Government Accountability Office rejected its protest of the service’s decision to
choose Textron’s Bell to build the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft.
The
FLRAA competition pitted
Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft against Sikorsky and Boeing’s
Defiant X, which features coaxial rotor blades.
Sikorsky “has decided not to pursue additional legal action regarding the [FLRAA] program,” a company statement said. “We are disappointed with the [GAO] decision and remain convinced that our [Defiant] X offering represented both the best value for the taxpayer and the transformation technology that our warfighters need to execute their complex missions.”
Instead, Sikorsky will turn its focus to the Army’s other future vertical lift pursuit,
the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft. Sikorsky is pitted against Bell in the FARA competition. Each company was selected in 2020 to build prototypes in a competition that will culminate in a flight demonstration phase that has now been delayed by several years beyond
original plans to fly in 2023.
Flights of the prototypes are now scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, wrapping up a year later, according to fiscal 2024 Army budget documents. The delays are due to
issues the Army is having with its Improved Turbine Engine Program, the engine chosen for FARA.
The company will also continue its modernization of the Army’s UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopters that will remain in service for decades as well as “future technology critical to mission readiness for the United States and Allied nations,” the Sikorsky statement added.….