On August 24 the United States Federal Claims Court issued a potentially far-reaching opinion (AgustaWestland North America, Inc. v. United States No. 14-877 C) in the continuing dispute between Leonardo Helicopters and the U.S. Army concerning the Army’s decision to use the Airbus Helicopters UH-72A Lakota light twin as its primary training aircraft. The Army decided to use a portion of the 400 UH-72s it had already purchased and/or optioned under a $3.2 billion Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) 2006 contract and to order more helicopters under that contract to fulfill the training mission. To help bring its training operations at Fort Rucker, Ala., to full strength, the Army filed a “justification and approval” in December last year to purchase 16 more UH-72As without “full and open competition.” The Army also intends to purchase another 97 training helicopters for FY18 for the training mission, subject to congressional appropriations.
While the court upheld the validity of the Army’s 2006 contract with Airbus, it issued a preliminary injunction and remanded the matter to the Army for six months to: “(1) proceed with a competitive procurement; (2) reissue a new Justification and Approval For Other Than Full And Open Competition, correcting the deficiencies identified herein and conducting a new Independent Government Estimate; or (3) not proceeding with this procurement.”
This basically gives the Army the choice of continuing to conduct primary training operations with a mixed fleet of aging Bell TH-67s/OH-58s and newer Airbus UH-72As; conducting training with a mixed fleet of UH-72As and some other helicopter; conducting training with all, but fewer UH-72As; or rewriting the Justification and Approval document and possibly facing more rounds in court with Leonardo.
More troubling for the Army, “the court has determined that the April 3, 2014 Executive Order 109-14, to the extent that it standardized on the UH-72A Lakota helicopters as the Army’s ‘only one responsible source’ for Institutional Training Helicopters, violated the CICA (federal Competition in Contracting Act).”
Proceedings in the case are currently stayed during the six-month remand period, during which time the government must make progress reports to the court every 90 days. Beyond the immediate case at hand, it could set a legal precedent whenever a service branch wants to make limited inventory additions to existing systems, forcing them to competitive bid limited-quantity replacements.
The U.S. Army began primary training for helicopter pilots using the Airbus UH-72A at the 110th Aviation Brigade at Fort Rucker, Ala., late last year. The Army’s plan is to transition its basic training and basic combat skills training flying from a combination of the Bell TH-67 Creek and OH-58A/C Kiowa Warrior to the UH-72A over the course of the next four years. This year, 25 percent of students will train in the Airbus and the number will climb by 25 percent annually as the fleet grows to 204 from the current 61 as the Bells are retired.