Marine Corps preparing to buy out program of record on VH-92A presidential helicopter

By Justin Katz / April 9, 2018 at 4:38 PM

The Marine Corps is in contract negotiations to buy the last 17 VH-92A presidential helicopters from Sikorsky in the mid-2019 time frame contingent on that aircraft reaching milestone C, according to the program manager.

The contract will include a base award of six aircraft and two options: an additional six aircraft and an additional five aircraft, Col. Eric Ropella, VH-92A program manager, told reporters today at the Sea-Air-Space conference in National Harbor, MD.

The Navy is in the "early phases" of evaluating a Sikorsky proposal and hopes to finalize the contract by the end of 2018, according to Ropella.

"And then [the contract] basically goes on the shelf because we cannot award that contract until we successfully go through milestone C. That's going to be the driving point of when we award on that," Ropella said.

He said the aircraft is expected to reach milestone C this time next year.

Those 17 aircraft would be bought over the course of three years from fiscal year 2019 to FY-21, and complete the program of record with 21 operational and two test aircraft.

195008