Topic: Pentagon Backs Troubled Presidential Copter Program

Team Infidel

Fort Worth Star Telegram
December 22, 2007 By Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg News
The Pentagon has rejected a recommendation by the Navy to delay the purchase and operation of a new presidential helicopter built by a team led by Lockheed Martin, according to a budget document.
Instead, in a Dec. 17 memo, Pentagon Comptroller Tina Jonas included $555.6 million to buy four helicopters in the next fiscal year. Navy Secretary Donald Winter, citing "consistent under-execution," recommended in August that the purchase be delayed until after 2010 and the money transferred into more development.
Jonas directed the Navy to pay for improvements to the fleet of 19 presidential helicopters, some of them 40 years old, until the new model becomes operational. The Pentagon's budget request will be scrutinized by lawmakers after the Navy said it was reorganizing the $6.1 billion program because of projected cost growth, weight increases and delays.
None of those issues are addressed in the memo, which says the program will request $1 billion in fiscal 2009, including $555.6 million to buy four helicopters.
The Lockheed aircraft is based on the design of the EH101 helicopter produced by AgustaWestland, a unit of Finmeccanica SpA of Italy. Fort Worth-based Bell Helicopter would build the aircraft.
The Pentagon's decision to move ahead comes as "the White House has rebuffed proposals to significantly delay the program because the current fleet of helicopters has grown quite old and lacks important features" for the president, said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Arlington, Va.-based Lexington Institute, a defense research group.
Lockheed spokeswoman Monica Hallman said the company "has received no official notification on funding decisions."
Jonas' spokesman, Lt. Col. Brian Maka, declined to comment on the decision. Kevin Wensing, a spokesman for Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, said "the program is moving ahead." England met with White House officials last week to review various options, Wensing said.

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