Boeing beats rivals to win helicopter bid
Boeing Co. on Thursday won the competition to build more than 100 search-and-rescue helicopters for the Air Force under a contract potentially worth $10 billion over a dozen years.
The Chicago-based aerospace giant was a surprise winner over archrival Lockheed Martin Corp. and Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. to develop the combat search-and-rescue craft. The Air Force plans to use them to recover downed pilots and transport special-operations personnel into hostile areas.
The competition was considered one of the most important for the rotorcraft industry in years, and many analysts had expected Lockheed to win the contract. The Bethesda, Md.-based contractor, along with partner AgustaWestland of Italy, last year won the bid to build 23 Marine One helicopters used by the president.
Two factors that had been expected to favor Boeing’s rivals were weight and price. Boeing’s entry weighs twice as much as the competing models and costs several million dollars more, analysts estimated.
“I’m surprised by the outcome,” said Richard Aboulafia, aerospace analyst with Teal Group Corp. “Lockheed-Agusta was seen as the favorite.”
Boeing’s model has tandem rotors and is based on its CH-47 Chinook, which has been widely used since the 1960s to transport troops and equipment into battlefields.
In announcing the contract, the Air Force declined to provide details about the competition or its reasons for choosing Boeing, other than to say that the company’s helicopters would be available sooner than the others.
The new helicopters will replace the aging HH-60G Pave Hawk built by Sikorsky, a Stratford, Conn.-based unit of United Technologies Corp. The average age of the helicopters is 16.
Under the contract, Boeing will build 141 helicopters and four test vehicles at its Rotorcraft Systems manufacturing facility in Ridley Park, Pa., where it has built several variants of the Chinook. The first of the new helicopters is expected to enter service in 2013.
“We believe our proposal provided the best combination of capability and cost,” said Mike Tkach, general manager of Boeing Rotorcraft Systems.
Boeing is Southern California’s largest private employer, with 31,000 workers.
The contract award was announced after stock markets closed. Boeing shares dropped 34 cents to $85.11 in regular trading.
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