Sikorsky will win.
Interesting editorial on Rotorhub today.
"Thoughts As Marine One Goes Down To Wire
Stratford, CT: Why is Sikorsky still waging the war of words on the US Marine One Presidential Helicopter competition - VXX?
Says Nick Lappos, Program Manager on the project: The battle is on a grander scale than just the competition.'
Explaining, Lappos says there is a need to anticipate the climate after VXX, when the S-92's technical merits could be obscured in the jumble of activity and torrent of commentary that wil flollow.
'They (Lockheed Martin) wil say - if we win - 'they won but it was political,' and that would not tell the story. Of course, if we lost, we will suffer the same thing but for a different reason: 'they must have lost because they weren't technically good enough.''
Lappos' dilemma - surely mirrored on the other side as well - highlights the importance of VXX for what is considered the real pot of gold in the medium helicopter market today, the USAF''s PRV (Personnel Recovery Vehicle) contract, the RFP for which is is anticipated by next May.
The irony for both sides is that by allowing VXX to become politicised the way it has - around the question of national identity - the VXX is locked into a context that doesn't allow the most meaninful points - the technical merits - to emerge.
Lockheed Martin continues to invest heavily in advertising - Sikorsky claims it doesn't have the matching resources even as the 'evidence' - in this case the submissions to the Navy - has been presented. Final proposals will go in before Christmas to the Marines, and Navy evaluators will prepare their decision by January 28. That date, Sikorsky officials here said, is hardening 'day by day.'
'We're pretty much certain there will be a decision at that time. No more slippages. There are just a lot of signals saying that's the plan and they'e sticking to it.'
There is, of couse, many a minefield twixt now and that final nod.
The decision can be seen as a 'two-parter ' in some ways, a technical merit-based evaluation, and one potentially manipulated to meet the needs of the White House politics du jour.
Lappos, a realist, says he is concerned about that, hence the need to keep telling his side of the story - but with the twist of beating back the points made against him by the other aide.
Lappos was in fine and often devatastingly funny form protecting the merits of his programme.
He is, perhaps, on the angry side about some of the things said, particularly about claims concerning payload range and costs. This is not the place to go into detail because others have heard the points before.
Lappos is cutting, however, about claims of a 30 percent size advantage ascribed to US-101. 'If you like, I'll give them a tape measure, and even show them how to use it,' he quipped, of the somewhat arcane debate going on about cabin volume.
In another part of the brief he says - or a chart does - 'A private in the US Army has a safer ride than a Prime Minister in an EH-101.' One of his main points is that some claims made by Lockheed Martin 'fly in the face that their's is a safer more powerful aircraft; it is not. It is less efficient.'
Observers in the media have revelled in the contest - one of the liveliest for a long time and one with the added interest-attracting feature of lots of lavish display advertising available to media not mormally seen inside aircraft factories at all. If we could say one thing for sure it is how we have admired the restraint shown by both sides in resisting the temptation to spin tales and tell whoppers to obviously non-technical and non-aviation press who wouldn't know the difference anyway.
So is this the end of the competition?
Well, there's still six or seven weeks left (including Christamas and the New Year) for the Agusta Westland Lockheed Martin folks to come back with a 'best and final' rejoinder,' but somehow we don't think they will.
The Navy was supposed to mandate a 'quiet time' in the VXX several weeks ago, but hasn't done so yet. It might be in everyone's interest if it did so soon.
We get the point - the industry gets the point - that this is a 'needle' contest for a lot of reasons. From our perspective it is an important one mostly for the future of the helicopter industry, whoever wins. This is an industry badly stalled in terms of technical development, almost totally reliant on the Government to feed it with orders. The fight is over, really, scraps, though important scraps that will go a long way to dictate how the whole industry fares in the future.
Yes you can say VXX is the key to PRV, and therefore a 'must win' for anyone wanting to win the big contests.
But we've seen things like PRV before - massive programmes with poorly organised constituencies supporting them, poor internal politics, questionable support from the PA and E communities that must approve the budgets and overall low priority status in the 'big world' of F-22 Raptors, Joint Strike Fighters and tankers - leased or unleased.
VXX has a good, real, chance of going ahead within a reasonable time. PRV doesn't. And both sides know it.