The decision to stick with the 401C for the R wasn't a cost issue, it simply wasn't part of the requirement. When originally developed in the mid-1990s, the LAMPS MkIII Block II upgrade was primarily intended as a SLEP to keep a consolidated Seahawk fleet (consisting of reman'd Bs and Fs) flying until 2015, the focus being on mission equipment.
I am somewhat familiar with why the Deputy Secnav put that program back into R & D when the SLEP program ran into some non trivial fit issues in the late 90's. You are right, it was intended as a remanufacture. (So too was UH-1 -> Y and AH-1 -> Z, and we see how that's worked out, right?).
The M actually derived from the L+ effort, not the X (aka FUR, for which a 3K engine was planned). Being again a mid-1990s project, the L+ was conceived long before 6K/95 became a requirement, hence the minor power improvement offered by the 701D.
Thanks for that, didn't realize that.
The more significant improvement offered by the 701D is in terms of engine life, the result of a joint effort by GE and CCAD.
Which is a good thing. Good on them both.
There is one section of the Hawk community already benefitting from a more powerful engine: SOCOM's new MH-60Ms are equipped with the 2,600 shp FADEC-equipped T706-GE-700 (CT7-8B5).
Too bad they can't (won't?) put that on the Romeo ...
There are no plans at this time to migrate the T706 to the vanilla UH/HH-60M (Block I retains the 701D, with the Block II intended to jump straight to a 3K class engine in the shape of the GE3000 or HPW3000).
Neat, thanks for that!