Sikorsky Challenges Navy Plan

[+Erik 1,812]

 

Sikorsky Challenges Navy Plan To Buy Russian-Made Helicopters for Afghanistan

 

By EZRA R. SILK and ERIC GERSHON, esilk@courant.com -- 8:42 PM EDT, August 4, 2010

 

 

Sikorsky Aircraft has formally protested a Navy plan to buy the same Russian-made helicopters for military operations in Afghanistan that the Russians used there during the 1980s.

 

In a document filed with the federal government Tuesday, the Stratford-based helicopter company challenged the Navy's plan to acquire 21 additional Mi-17 helicopters built by Kazan Helicopters of Russia, which is affiliated with a Russian state corporation.

 

Sikorsky said it should be allowed to compete for the contract because there is an alternative — its own S-61 helicopter, developed in the late 1950s. Sikorsky said it had recently provided S-61 aircraft to the U.S. Department of State for use in Afghanistan.

 

The Navy intends to provide the helicopters for the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, which trains the Afghan National Army Air Corps, Sikorsky said.

 

The military already has been criticized by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., for procuring the Russian helicopters for the war effort. U.S. Air Force officials responded last month, saying that almost all Afghan Air Corps pilots were trained to fly Russian helicopters, and that training an entire flight crew can take two to five years.

 

"The Mi-17 fits in directly with the experience of Afghan pilots' and mechanics' training," said Richard Aboulafia, a defense industry analyst with the Virginia-based Teal Group. "They need something simple, robust, maintainable — something basically that isn't built today, unless you're in Russia."

 

Sikorsky spokesman Paul Jackson says the company could provide the necessary training for Afghan pilots, but declined to provide an estimate for how long that would take.

 

According to the protest document, the Navy sought bids for the work on July 8, but specified that it wants Mi-17-variant helicopters and parts, which are built only by Kazan. The bids are due today.

 

Aboulafia characterized the dispute as a "race to the past."

 

"Its like saying we want to buy an obsolete Russian truck that was still built today and an American company saying we have all these leftover 1960s trucks that we can retrofit," he said. "If you want something that the Afghans can easily interface with as quickly as possible, then Mi-17s are the way to go. If you want U.S. industry to benefit from U.S. cash, you understand the Sikorsky argument."

 

Sikorsky said it wants "a full and open competition that is not unduly restrictive on the basis of a particular brand-name peculiar to just one manufacturer."

 

Sikorsky, a division of Hartford-based United Technologies Corp., filed its protest with the Government Accountability Office in Washington. The GAO's Bid Protest Forum will have 100 days to write a recommendation to the agencies involved.

 

"This is an unusual situation," said Ralph White, managing associate general counsel for procurement law at the GAO. "The Navy has specified that it wants a Russian helicopter. We haven't seen many instances of that kind of limitation and we'll wait and see what the Navy has to say."

 

Mark Wright, a Department of Defense spokesperson, declined to comment.

 

Dodd and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, condemned previous Mi-17 procurements in a December 2009 open letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Jackson declined to say whether Sikorsky had lobbied Dodd or Delauro, but that the company has voiced its "concerns with appropriate channels."

 

Dodd affirmed the Sikorsky protest in a statement Wednesday.

 

"I find it troubling that [the Department of Defense] would supply aircraft for our Afghan partners without holding a fair and open competition to include helicopters made right here in Connecticut by Connecticut workers," he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CTnow

[+SkippyBing 8]

Personally I'd say the Mi-17 is the right helicopter.

Having seen the situation in Iraq where lots of nice Western equipment falls apart after a month because the maintenance routine is too complicated. They need equipment they're familiar with and that can be maintained with a sledgehammer!

[Gr.Viper 131]

I bet metric equipment designed for Soviet parts is easier to get in that hole, than anything with imperial measurements.

[Slartibartfast 153]

:blink:

 

Okay lets look at this either a you give the Afghans a new Helicopter that they have no experience with or you give them what they know answer to that is easy...

 

This isn't for the US Navy its to train the Afghans on how to use and operate their own Helicopters which if I believe is the Mi-8/17 series not the S-61... Also I bet you can buy more Mi-17's than S-61's...