Monica Jackson
The U.S. Air Force could name a manufacturer in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018 to build helicopters that will replace the military service’s UH-1N Huey fleet, National Defense Magazine reported Tuesday.
Proposed replacement platforms are Sikorsky‘s HH-60U, Boeing‘s MH-139 and Sierra Nevada Corp.‘s UH-60L.
Boeing said last year its offering was derived from Leonardo’s AW139 multimission helicopter that have been delivered to 250 government, military and industry customers worldwide.
USAF issued the first request for proposal for the Huey replacement in December 2016 and pushed back the announcement of the contract award due to budget challenges and a protest filed by one of the bidders.
The service branch has a two-year window in which to obligate fiscal 2017 research, development, test and evaluation funds on the Huey replacement program, the report noted.
