The Bids are In, Again

The Bids are In, Again: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Sikorsky have all turned in their updated CSAR-X bids to the Air Force, meeting the service’s Jan. 20 deadline for this latest round in its combat search and rescue helicopter recapitalization saga, reports Flight. Unless the new Administration changes the CSAR-X program’s course, it now appears that we are looking at an announcement sometime in the spring or summer on the long-delayed source selection. Boeing won the initial contest more than two years ago in November 2006 with its HH-47 design. But two subsequent rounds of successful legal challenges by Lockheed and Sikorsky over how the Air Force conducted its evaluation of the bids, including their respective HH-71 and HH-92 models, caused the Air Force to accept revised bids and redo its evaluation. The winning helicopter will replace the service’s HH-60s, which are elderly and limited in areas like range and cabin space. The Air Force wants to field the first squadron of what will eventually be a fleet of 141 new rescue helicopters no later than the fourth quarter of Fiscal 2014, if not earlier.

1/22/2009

Verbatim

No Dog, Just Concern
"You know it concerns me that we keep hearing, 'Well this is something that the military doesn't want. They didn't ask for,' and all that. Then I go over there [Southwest Asia theater], and that's not their attitude at all. They have needs over there. Our lift capacity is in dire straights. … Now on the F-22—just yesterday we read about the T-50 … a fifth generation [fighter] that the Russians have. … I'm concerned about this. And I guess, you know, if we're down to 187 F-22s, and I think out of that only—what 120 are actually combat ready and used for combat. … I look at our committee—the Senate Armed Services Committee—and on these two vehicles I mentioned—the F-22 and the C-17—in Oklahoma. I don't have a dog in that fight. We don't have any parochial interest there. But it's the capability that we're going to need."
—Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), speaking during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Fiscal 2011 defense budget, Feb. 2, 2010.

Verbatim

Taming Expectations
"Every QDR disappoints those who look for radical reallocation of resources. The current fiscal environment is compounding that trend."
—Jim Thomas, vice president for studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefing reporters in Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, 2010.