AgustaWestland, Boeing Team On U.S. VXX

[buglerbilly]

Jun 7, 2010

By Bettina H. Chavanne chavanne@aviationweek.com
Washington, DC

The renewed VXX presidential helicopter program heated up again today, as Boeing announced it is teaming with AgustaWestland to offer the AW101 helicopter for the competition.

Boeing says it will secure a license to produce the aircraft from AgustaWestland, which will give Boeing full intellectual property, data and production rights in support of the VXX program. Boeing will be the prime contractor and will design, build and deliver the so-called Boeing 101 helicopter, the company reports.

In April, the U.S. Navy extended its request for information to mid-June, providing enough time for all interested parties to respond. Former competitors Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. and Lockheed Martin announced April 19 they will team up for the contest. Sikorsky, a United Technologies company, lost the original bid in 2005, when Lockheed was partnered with AgustaWestland. This time around, Sikorsky will offer its H-92 (a hardened version of its S-92) medium-lift helicopter again, with Lockheed performing all the mission systems integration (Aerospace DAILY, Apr. 20).

AgustaWestland’s Italian parent company, Finmeccanica, has been redeveloping its relationship with Boeing on the commercial side as well, Finmeccanica CEO Pier Francesco Guarguaglini said recently. The two companies signed a strategic memorandum of understanding in 2003, with a high-level steering committee established that met regularly. In May, Finmeccanica told Aviation Week it was looking to expand its product portfolio in the U.S., including the AgustaWestland AW101 transport helicopter with Boeing as a preferred partner (Aerospace DAILY, May 7). The canceled VH-71 is a variant of the AW-101.

Source: White House

[buglerbilly]

Agusta 101 Helo Back in the VXX Fray, With Boeing

By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS

Published: 7 Jun 2010 14:36

AgustaWestland's 101 helicopter once won a competition to become the next U.S. presidential helo, only to have the program crash into the wall of requirements creep. Now it's back in the game, this time with a new U.S. partner.


Boeing announced June 7 that it was acquiring "full intellectual rights" to AgustaWestland's 101 helicopter in its bid for the next U.S. presidential helo. (AgustaWestland)

Boeing announced Monday it was acquiring "full intellectual rights" to the medium-lift 101 and will submit a proposal using the aircraft for the new VXX competition to build a presidential helicopter fleet.

It will be the third airframe Boeing is offering for the program, having earlier submitted proposals based on its CH-47 Chinook helicopter, and, with its Bell-Boeing partner, the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft.

Boeing already has a relationship with Agusta on the H-47, with the helicopter being built under license in Italy.

Augusta partnered with prime contractor Lockheed Martin on an earlier presidential helo bid using the 101 airframe. That helicopter program, with the military designation VH-71, was canceled in May 2009 after constantly increasing requirements resulted in unacceptable price increases and production delays. The VH-71 program also was criticized for using a foreign-made aircraft - Agusta manufactured the airframes in England, but Lockheed installed most mission systems at a facility in New York state.

"This will be a Boeing-built aircraft," Phil Dunford, head of Boeing Rotorcraft Systems, declared Monday during a teleconference with reporters.

No decision has been made on where the aircraft would be built - including whether it would be at a new or existing facility - but Dunford was adamant it would be in the United States.

"We will look for the best capability across the Boeing company," he said. "It's not just building a helicopter, there's a lot of integration associated with it."

Boeing's other proposals were submitted by April 19, the date the Navy had set for the submission of responses to its request for information on VXX ideas.

Sikorsky also submitted a proposal by that date, using its S-70 model but is now partnered with Lockheed Martin as a major systems supplier.

A 60-day extension was granted later that day by the Navy, reportedly at the request of AgustaWestland.

Dunford confirmed that the idea to partner Boeing with Agusta and use the 101 grew out of discussions between the companies on a variety of projects, but he would not characterize either company as the lead on the idea.

"It kind of just happened," he said. "Both companies feel like it's the right way to go."

In its own announcement of the teaming, Finmeccanica said, "AgustaWestland will keep a role in developing the programme and will be awarded a significant part of the basic helicopter production."

"It is the right aircraft for this mission; there are many reasons why it won the first time around," said Finmeccanica CEO Pierfrancesco Guarguaglini.

Boeing, ironically, is engaged in a bitter contest for the U.S. Air Force's aerial tanker program. The Chicago-based company has campaigned around a U.S.-built aircraft against rival Northrop Grumman's proposal to build a plane in the United States using a European Airbus design. Boeing and its supporters continually decried the Northrop proposal as a "foreign-built" plan. ■

Tom Kington contributed to this story from Rome.

[Chunder]

I wonder if this will affect CSARX?

Edit on further thought. Tanker Wars: Boeing Objects to Europeans Teaming with Americans for KC X. But teams with Europeans to supply VXX...

Seriously.... hows that going up your jatz cracker Pat?

[buglerbilly]

DATE:08/06/10

SOURCE:Flight International

Boeing says AW101 one of its three options for VXX

By Stephen Trimble

Boeing has proposed offering a US-built version of the AgustaWestland AW101 for the VXX presidential helicopter contract, despite a long-standing policy of opposing aircraft that have benefited from European launch aid subsidies.

Phil Dunford, vice-president and general manager of Boeing rotorcraft, says he is unaware of any grants and loans for the Italian-British helicopter design that have not already been paid back.

A 1992 transcript of a debate in the UK House of Commons quotes Lord David Sainsbury of the Board of Trade as saying: "My department has provided £60 million [$87 million] of launch aid for the civil version of the EH101."


© AgustaWestland

Boeing's decision to consider a foreign aircraft design for the VXX contracts comes as the company's top executives criticise EADS North America for offering a tanker that benefited from European government subsidies on the civil market. The EADS KC-45 tanker is a military tanker version of the Airbus A330-200, which also received subsidised loans.

Shortly after the VXX announcement, EADS called on Boeing to "cease its shrill rhetoric and finally allow the KC-X competition to focus on the merits of the tanker offerings".

Dunford says the renamed Boeing 101 helicopter is among three rotorcraft the company could offer to the US Navy. The Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey and the Boeing CH-47 Chinook also remain candidates.

Whichever aircraft Boeing ultimately submits will depend on the results of the USN's ongoing analysis of alternatives, Dunford says.

Although the navy has not disclosed a timetable for a competition, Dunford says he expects a request for proposals to be issued in 2011. The possibility of Boeing offering a licensed version of the AW101, which includes transferring all intellectual property, data and production rights, would shake up the VXX competition.

A Lockheed Martin/AgustaWestland team won the previous presidential helicopter contract in 2004, but a series of required design changes that drove up costs led to the termination of the contract five years later.

Lockheed has now teamed with Sikorsky, its former rival, to offer the VH-92 to the for the globally prized contract.

The USN wants to replace ageing Sikorsky VH-3Ds and VH-60Ns as soon as possible with 23-26 new aircraft. A request for information issued earlier this year hinted that it could divide the contract between two aircraft types.

Citing the need for competitive secrecy, Dunford declines to specify the airframe and engine configuration for the proposed Boeing 101 concept. Lockheed previously won the contract with an AW101 design powered by the General Electric CT7-8 engine.