Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor won the US Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) competition. (Bell)
WASHINGTON — Sikorsky and Boeing will not file a lawsuit in an attempt to block the US Army’s multi-billion-dollar Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft program, the companies announced today.
The team initially filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office after the service picked Bell Textron’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor to eventually replace thousands of UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. Then last week, the government watchdog released a 38-page public report said that, even though the Sikorsky-Boeing Defiant X was the cheaper bid, it was “unacceptable” in some key areas.
As a result, the Sikorsky-Boeing was left to decide if it would file a lawsuit in federal court, a move it ultimately decided against.
“We are disappointed with the Government Accountability Office decision and remain convinced that our Defiant X offering represented both the best value for the taxpayer and the transformational technology that our warfighters need to execute their complex missions,” a Sikorsky spokeswoman wrote in a statement. “We value our long-standing partnership with the US Army, and serving their missions remains our top priority.”
Sikorsky said it will now focus on winning the upcoming Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) competition with its Raider X prototype, modernizing Black Hawks and delivering other “future technology critical to mission readiness.” That competition will serve as a de facto round two between Sikorsky and Bell, with the latter offering its 360 Invictus design.
But even as the Sikorsky-Boeing team steps back from FLRAA, it is not yet clear if lawmakers from Connecticut, where Sikorsky is based, are prepared to do the same. And if they’re not, they could tie up funding or slow the program down.
More specifically, a bipartisan group of seven lawmakers from the state have taken aim at the Army’s decision in recent months, and when the GAO first announced findings earlier this month, this group said they were “deeply disappointed” and vowed “we will not end our efforts as a result of this misguided decision.
“Despite numerous attempts beginning in December 2022 to engage directly with the Army, we as Members of Congress have still not been given answers on how the Army came to their decision on FLRAA,” the lawmakers wrote in a April 6 statement.
However, on April 11, Army Under Secretary Gabe Camarillo told reporters he anticipated that those briefings would begin shortly now that GAO had released its decision.
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