Sikorsky-Boeing will not sue Army over FLRAA
Sikorsky now sets sights on winning the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft competition and Black Hawk modernization.
Sikorsky now sets sights on winning the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft competition and Black Hawk modernization.
The Army reasoned “Sikorsky’s proposal provided something similar to a drawing of what the house looked like on the outside…. Such a picture did not provide the functional detail that the Army required showing what the space would look like on the inside,” according to the Government Accountability Office.
"In denying the protest, GAO concluded that the Army reasonably evaluated Sikorsky’s proposal as technically unacceptable because Sikorsky failed to provide the level of architectural detail required by the RFP," the office wrote in a statement.
"I think there's further work to do to improve the system. But we saw a lot of positive things as a test," the Army's top acquisition official said of IVAS, before separately noting a potential delay in a major future helicopter program contract.
“If we didn't have an S-97, we'd have to wait another year-plus to be able to fly those data points and to inform our production design,” said Sikorsky's chief engineer for the company's Raider-X FARA offering.
The news comes months after Sikorsky-Boeing announced it would be using Honeywell’s HTS7500 turboshaft engine for its FLRAA offering, the DEFIANT X.
After a 700 nautical mile trip to show off its FLRAA offering in Nashville, pilot feedback on the SB>1 Defiant was "absolutely boring — the way test pilots like it to be," a Team Defiant member said.
The Army's contract award will come later this year.
The test flight included low-level flight operation and confined area landings, the design team said.