DM
That's not accurate. You had to have either a current US military cert, or a current civil cert. So if you fell in the middle like an AW101 or NH-90, you were not considered currently certified and made you a non-starter compared to a currently US military or civil certified aircraft.
Also, the NAVAIR plan was to have the FAA certification maintained and only have NAVAIR certify certain elements of the aircraft that the FAA would waive. Which means the aircraft would have to go through STC's for any changes and be maintained by FAA certified mechs which HMX-1 doesn't have. They still use Marine maintenance for security reasons.
All this remains to be seen whether it can be accomplished or is really an end run around the NAVAIR testing mandate, which they would impose if the aircraft is going to be certified by them. (See P-8 program). If the NAVY ends up certifying the entire aircraft, then other vendors would have submitted proposals because ANY existing certification would have been simply a starting point for the Navy certification.