USAF To Award CRH Contract To Sikorsky This Year

The US Air Force will award the long-pending combat rescue helicopter (CRH) contract to Sikorsky by June 2014, according to reports.

The USAF will realign approximately $430m from other priorities beyond 2014 through 2020 in a bid to award a competitive contract for a new rescue helicopter to perform the personnel recovery mission, according to airforce-technology.com.

US Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said the decision to award CRH contract protects a good competitive price and effectively uses the $334m Congress had allotted for the programme.

"Over the last ten years, the air force has discussed upgrading the platform that performs this sacred mission for all DOD personnel who go into harm's way," James was quoted as saying.

The programme is required to go through several reviews before moving forward with the award, including a Milestone B review to officially start the programme, and an independent cost assessment.

James said the competitive price and the funding provided by Congress will enable USAF to award the CRH contract, but the service may still face significant challenges to keep the effort on track.

"We will need to work with Congress throughout 2015 budget deliberations, and if the FY 16 DOD budget request drops back to sequestration levels, this program, along with many others, will need to be relooked," James added.

A scaled-back version of USAF's previous CSAR-X programme, the CRH programme seeks production of 112 search-and-rescue aircraft for personnel recovery operations in hostile locations, humanitarian missions, civil search-and-rescue, disaster relief, casualty and medical evacuation and non-combatant evacuation operations.