A slew of recently-awarded support and upgrade contracts for the Navy’s MH-60 helicopter could set the stage for future international sales of the rotorcraft to a number of partner nations, according to senior industry officials involved with the program.
The contracts for the joint Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Sikorsky [UTX]-built aircraft, which total roughly $360 million, will cover everything from improved situational awareness and cockpit upgrades to integration of next-generation detection and discrimination technologies, for both the S and R models of the aircraft.
That upgrade work, specifically work focused on avionics upgrades for the R variant and cockpit upgrades for the S models, will be integrated into the next production block of the program, according to a company statement. That block will cover production of 24 MH-60Rs and 18 MH-60Ss. Seventy-two million of the $350 million in program contract awards issued by the Navy will finance long-lead items associated with the avionics and cockpit work for the helicopter.
Such an investment in MH-60 upgrades and support by the Navy could prompt other foreign navies to strongly consider the helicopter to fill their operational needs.
“We have a lot of international navies that all want to…interoperate with the U.S. Navy. If you want to do that, how better than on a U.S. Navy platform,” Michelle Evans, vice president for Lockheed Martin’s ship and aviation systems, said in an interview yesterday.
The countries who have expressed interest over potential acquistion of the MH-60 are Australia, Denmark, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, according to Evans.
Each country, she noted, will likely hold individual competitions to fill their respective vertical lift requirements. “With each one of [the countries], we are seeing kind of a different mix of what we are competing against” she said.
To that end, officials with the Australian navy are close to selecting either the MH-60 or the MRH-90 rotorcraft to support its anti-submarine operations.
Defense officials are in the final stages of a downselect and would likely issue an award within the March-April timeframe, Australian naval attache Commodore Steve Woodall said during a brief interview yesterday.
While he declined to comment on the specifics of those internal negotiations, he did note that the recent acquisition of a number of MRH-90s by the Australian army could pose some interoperability issues, should the sea service opt for the MH-60. However, he did note the Lockheed Martin aircraft’s proven design and performance was something Australian officials were drawn toward, compared to the relatively new MRH-90.
It is that high level of maturity on the MH-60, combined with the interoperability capabilities with the U.S. Navy the aircraft provides, that Lockheed Martin officials believe will be the decisive factor in the Australian and other future international competitions, Mike Middleton, Lockheed Martin’s head of business development for H-60 programs, said during the same interview.
International participants “can just roll right into [the program] and gather the benefits of the 300 birds that are out there now,” he said, noting if Australia opted for the MH-60, deliveries could take place as early as December 2013.
That cooperation goes both ways as well, Evans and Middleton added. U.S. Navy officials can take lessons learned from the disparate mission sets foreign navies may look to implement on the helicopter. “They are really good at what they do, ASW-wise . . . they have some ideas that they would like to insert to be able to keep [the MH-60] relevant,” Middleton said.