Sikorsky Aircraft received a $938 million contract to design an armed reconnaissance helicopter for the U.S. Army, with four other manufacturers in the running to field a replacement for the mothballed Kiowa scout helicopter.
The government of India is seeking approval from the U.S. government to purchase two dozen Seahawk helicopters at a total contract value as high as $2.6 billion.
And the aviation industry comes together in less than two months at the biennial Paris Air Show, where helicopter makers often time announcements on big contracts to generate extra attention.
The Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft program could means billions of dollars in sales for the winning contractor, with Sikorsky having its main production plant in Stratford as a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin.
Boeing, Sikorsky’s partner developing the SB>1 Defiant prototype under the U.S. Department of Defense’s Future Vertical Lift competition for an adaptable helicopter prototype to varying missions, is competing on its own for the new FARA program.
Textron subsidiary Bell Helicopter is also a FARA entrant, with the manufacturer having produced some 2,200 OH-58 Kiowa helicopters and variants over a 45-year period. Also readying bids are startups Karem Aircraft of Lake Forest, Calif.; and AVX Aircraft, located in Bell’s backyard in Fort Worth, Texas, and teaming with the New York City-based defense giant L-3 Communications.
The Pentagon issued specifications last October for the new helicopter, with the goal of winnowing the field to two competitors next year in advance of a 2023 “fly off” to award any resulting contract.
Under its former parent company United Technologies, Sikorsky had put together a string of design...
from Business https://www.ctpost.com/business/article/In-Sikorsky-s-938M-helicopter-award-billions-13807315.php
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