<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/29/business/29copter.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=>
The New York Times January 29, 2005 Lockheed Team to Build Presidential Copters By LESLIE WAYNE fter a contest that had pitted domestic pride against global politics, the Pentagon yesterday chose an international team, headed by Lockheed Martin, to build the next fleet of presidential helicopters over Sikorsky Aircraft, which had positioned itself as the "all-American" choice. In selecting Lockheed, which will receive $1.7 billion initially to begin the program, the Pentagon signaled a new openness to foreign partners on sensitive military tasks. By doing so, it also rewarded Britain and Italy, two of the United States' staunchest allies in the Iraq War. The helicopter fleet, which will be ready in 2009, will be built by a joint venture of Lockheed and AgustaWestland, a British-Italian venture that designed much of the helicopter and will make about a third of it. John Young, the assistant Navy secretary who made the announcement, argued that politics played no role in the selection. But it was immediately denounced as "outrageously wrong" by Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, who lobbied strongly for Sikorsky to continue building the White House's helicopters, a role that dates back to the Eisenhower era. Sikorsky, a subsidiary of United Technologies, is based in Connecticut. New York's Congressional delegation, by contrast, lined up with the Lockheed group, supporting it because some of the work will be done at a new Lockheed plant in upstate New York. The $6.1 billion contract - $3.6 billion for the fleet of 23 helicopters and the rest for research and development - is far from the Pentagon's largest. But it is full of symbolic value and was seen as a critical test of the Pentagon's willingness to do business with foreign military companies. "We picked based on the best value for the mission," Mr. Young said in a Pentagon briefing. "There are no political influences on this. I was not asked by anyone to pick a particular one." To emphasize the point, Mr. Young added, "No one at the White House contacted me.'' The selection of a new presidential helicopter fleet - the helicopters are designat ed Marine One when the president is on board - took on new urgency after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when more communications equipment was added to the existing fleet, making the current models heavier and less maneuverable, especially at low altitudes. The new helicopters will be able to carry more weight, and fly farther and faster than the ones that currently ferry the president. "This announcement is a strong endorsement of a two-way street with Europe," said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with the Teal Group, an aerospace research firm in northern Virginia. "It is, however, hard to deny that politics played a role when the winner is two of the United States' Iraq War allies and you have a case of Connecticut versus Texas." The other lead player in the Lockheed team is Bell Helicopter, which is based in Amarillo, Tex. Lobbying for the Lockheed-AgustaWestland team took place at the highest levels. Both Tony Blair, the British prime minister, and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy raised the issue directly with President Bush in White House visits. The most recent pitch took place just before Christmas, when Mr. Berlusconi parried with Mr. Bush at a news conference, praising the quality of the Italian-designed aircraft. "I can only say that I've been flying these helicopters for 30 years and I am still here," said Mr. Berlusconi. In response, Mr. Bush said: "And you've never crashed. That's a good start." In a more serious vein, Mr. Bush said that Mr. Berlusconi had emphasized that most of the work would be done in the United States. "I understand the nature of U.S. jobs that will be created in the venture,'' he said, "and I assured him the venture will be treated fairly." Both sides waged all-out publicity campaigns, with billboards, radio and magazine ads. They lined up politicians to press their cases, and some of them are taking credit for the Lockheed selection. "I was pleased to have actively and aggressively supported Lockheed Martin," George E. Pataki, New York's Republican governor, said yesterday. Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat, said yesterday that he had spoken to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell "to get them to use their influence to secure Lockheed the contract." And Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, who had flown in Marine One as first lady, personally telephoned Mr. Blair before a recent meeting with President Bush to urge him to press for Lockheed. Senator Clinton was at the plant in Owego, N.Y., where Lockheed will make part of the craft, yesterday and called the presidential helicopter an "Oval Office in the sky." Many in Congress opposed to Lockheed's international team argued that the president should be ferried only in a helicopter that was American designed and made. To quell those concerns, Lockheed lined up a roster of suppliers around the country and committed itself to making the airframes in Texas. It also agreed to set up a new plant in upstate New York and spread work to companies in California and New England. On the Sikorsky side, many members of Congress who had lobbied for it expressed bitter disappointment with the decision. "Made in America should mean something,'' said Rosa L. DeLauro, a Democratic representative from Stratford, Conn., as she stood outside the Sikorsky plant there. "The Defense Department has some explaining to do.'' And Duncan Hunter, a California Republican who is a staunch "Buy America" proponent and serves as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, deplored the decision. "It is difficult to understand why we would use U.S. tax dollars to fund the further development of foreign helicopter technology,'' he said. Mr. Young said that two-thirds of the work on the new helicopters would take place in the United States, with the rest split between Italy and Britain. AgustaWestland is a subsidiary of the Italian firm, Finmeccanica. Several crucial components of the craft, including the transmission and rotor blades, will be built overseas. Lockheed itself will serve as a systems- integrator for the craft, and provide all the technical components and computers to connect it to the rest of the world. The helicopter chosen by the Pentagon, called the US 101, is a variation of one already in use by the British Royal Navy; it has been purchased by several other European countries and it is used to ferry the Pope. What swayed the Pentagon to Lockheed, Mr. Young said, was the fact that the US 101 has a larger cabin, can carry a heavier payload and could be put into service faster than Sikorsky's offering, the VH-92. The US 101 uses three engines, while the VH-92 has two. To some extent, the details of all the security measures incorporated in the helicopter fleet are so sensitive that it is impossible for outsiders to analyze each company's offerings against the Pentagon's requirements, said Loren B. Thompson, a military industry analyst at the Lexington Institute, a northern Virginia research group that monitors government spending. "The government will never release to the public a list of the requirements for this craft," Mr. Thompson said. "We'll all be in the dark. We won't know much because it is all classified." This is the second big blow to Sikorsky. Last year, it lost a $39 billion Pentagon contract when the Comanche helicopter program was cancelled. "Sikorsky and our All-American supplier team are disappointed with this outcome,'' said Stephen N. Finger, Sikorsky's president. "We're honored to have flown U.S. presidents for nearly half a century.'' Sikorsky is perhaps best known as maker of the Black Hawk helicopter, a military war horse that is in heavy use in Iraq. The VH-92 offering being designed by Sikorsky is a variant of its new S-92 midsized helicopter that the company is making with international partners. The fact that the VH-92 could trace its lineage to a foreign design caused some on the Lockheed side to claim that Sikorsky was not playing fair by calling its craft all-American. At the Sikorsky plant in Stratford, the Pentagon decision was greeted glumly. Workers gathered to commiserate at the Masters bar in nearby Shelton, where Sandi Stroomer, whose brother works at Sikorsky, as did her father, called the Pentagon decision a blow. "We're a Sikorsky family from way back,'' she said. Pat Stroomer, Sandi and Bill's mother, chalked the loss up to politics. "It's a known fact,'' she said, "that Kerry carried Connecticut.'' Copyrigh -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/_OLuKD/8WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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