Dark Horse Contender Boeing Snags Air Force Deal To Replace Aging UH-1N Hueys With MH-139

In an upset victory, the U.S. Air Force has selected the team-up of American plane-maker Boeing and Italian defense contractor Leonardo and their MH-139 helicopter as the replacement for the service’s aging UH-1N Hueys. The new choppers will support the service’s security forces elements charged with guarding America’s nuclear missile silos, as well as units that conduct VIP transport, training, local base rescue, and other utility roles in Washington, D.C. and other locations in the United States.

The Pentagon announced the deal in its daily contracting announcement on Sept. 24, 2018. The firm, fixed-price deal is worth more than $375.5 million and covers the first four MH-139 helicopters, which the Air Force expects to take delivery of in 2021. If the service exercises all of its options, the full value of the contract could be approximately $2.38 billion and would cover work through 2031.

This would include the purchase of up to 84 MH-139s in total, as well as training systems, other equipment, and support services. Boeing and Leonardo will conduct the majority of the work at facilities in Ridley Park and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

“Strong competition drove down costs for the program, resulting in $1.7 billion in savings to the taxpayer,” Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson said in a separate statement on Sept. 24, 2018. The original cost estimate for the program to replace the existing UH-1Ns was more than $4 billion.

“A safe, secure and effective nuclear enterprise is job one,” U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein, added. “It is imperative that we field a capable and effective helicopter to replace UH-1Ns providing security for our ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles] and nuclear deterrence operations.”

The MH-139 is a variant of the AW139, which Italy’s Augusta and Bell Helicopter, now part of Textron, originally developed in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Augusta eventually morphed first into AugustaWestland and then into Leonardo Helicopters. In 2005, AugustaWestland had bought out Bell's share of the program.

BOEING

The MH-139 demonstrator.

Variants of the twin-engine AW139 are presently in service with the Italian military, as well as other military forces, government agencies, and civilian operators around the world, including the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. The Italian government also flies VIP AW139s on behalf of the Vatican and the Pope. HeliVert, a joint venture between AgustaWestland and Russian Helicopters, license-produced examples in Russia, some of which ended up in that country's presidential helicopter fleet, shuttling President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials around.

The MH-139 for the Air Force will come with sensor turret under the nose with electro-optical and infrared cameras and provisions for machine gun mounts on either side of the helicopter, among other features. Depending on a particular unit's intended missions, sub-variants might have hoists for search and rescue missions in difficult to reach areas and other mission equipment.

CBP

A US Customs and Border Protection AW139 flying over Washington, DC.

The Air Force has been trying to replace its Vietnam War-era UH-1Ns for decades. In 2010, the service started the Common Vertical Lift Support Platform program, only to cancel it the next year, In 2015, it finally rebooted the effort and issued a formal call for bids in 2016.

Boeing and Leonardo’s helicopter beat out two separate UH-60 Black Hawk-based offerings from Sikorsky, now part of Lockheed Martin, and the Sierra Nevada Corporation. Many had seen Sikorsky’s HH-60U as the front-runner, as the Air Force already operates a small number of those aircraft, reportedly to provide security, local base rescue, and other support services at various test ranges, including the Nevada Test and Training Range, or NTTR, and the top-secret Area 51 test facility.

Sierra Nevada’s pitch, initially known as the Force Hawk, and then rebranded as the Sierra Force, would have consisted of ex-U.S. Army UH-60As rebuilt to a configuration similar to the more recent UH-60V conversion. These helicopters would have featured more powerful General Electric T-701D engines, a full glass cockpit, and updated avionics.

One of the HH-60Us Lockheed Martin had already supplied to the Air Force.

Airbus had also put forward a version of its H-145 helicopter, a training and light utility variant of which is in U.S. Army and Navy service as the UH-72A Lakota. Bell offered its UH-1Y Venom helicopter, which has seen combat with the U.S. Marine Corps. The Air Force rejected both of these proposals earlier in the contracting process.

But the MH-139, which is smaller and lighter than the UH-60-series, offered commercial-off-the-shelf airframe that required minimal modifications to perform the missions that the Air Force's present assigns to its UH-1Ns. "It’s still going to be cheaper to buy, it’s going to be cheaper to operate, and over the long term, a lot cheaper for the Air Force to sustain," Rick Lemaster, the head of Boeing's UH-1N capture team, had told Jane's 360 in July 2018.

As noted, the MH-139’s most visible mission will be patrolling ICBM silos and responding to any threats to those sites. They will also conduct convoy escort missions in and around those facilities, including protecting the transportation of nuclear warheads.