America's next largest and most powerful helicopter is more expensive than
the F-35. Lockheed Martin's Sikorsky Aircraft unit is building the new
helicopter for the u.s marines. It's powered by a brand new engine from GE
Aviation that will allow the king stallion to claim the top spot.
Lat week the US naval air systems command awarded the company a contract to
build 22 of the engines valued at $143 million.
Sometimes you have to be more than super to be number one. for four decades
Sikorsky's CH-53E super stallion ruled the American sky as the nation's
largest and most powerful helicopter. But the next-generation version of the
chopper, the CH-53K king stallion is now champing at the bit.
The marine corps has plans to buy 200 king stallions through the program.
each of the helicopters will be using three engines. GE spent a decade
building the new T408 engine, it will allow the CH-53K to carry as much
as 27,000 pounds of external load, some 27 real-life stallions, over a
mission radius of 110 nautical miles in hot weather conditions nearly triple
what its predecessor could manage.
At 7,378 shaft horsepower, the new engine will provide 57 percent more power
and use 18 percent less fuel, compared to the engines used by the super
stallion.
The new engine also has 63 percent fewer parts making maintenance
easier.CH-53K will be able to carry as much as 27 thousand pounds of
external load, nearly triple what its predecessor could manage. but the
company is developing new technology so fast it is already thinking about
future improvements.
The new helicopter will have fly-by-wire flight controls, fourth-generation
rotor blades with anhedral or drooped. tips that make the machine quieter
and other new technology.
If the CH-53K king stallion were a new car, its sticker price would be
$87.1 million, but with title tax and tags, it would run $131 million per
helicopter the marine corps ultimately plans to buy 200 CH-53K's by 2029 to
replace its fleet of aging CH-53E super stallion helicopters, which
have the most serious readiness problems of all aircraft in the marine corps
current fleet.
Representative Nikki S. D. Mass asserted that the price for each
CH-53K had ballooned from $87.1 million to $122 million per helicopter,
which is made by Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company.
So that cost growth multiplied times 200 is a heck of a lot of money, songs
said and even if there is no additional cost growth it seems worth pointing
out that 122 million dollars per aircraft in 2006 dollars exceeds the
current cost of an F-35, an aircraft for the air force by a significant
margin.
The marine corps responded that the per-unit cost for the CH-53K has
not increased, but that with any aircraft the first ones built are always
more expensive than the rest due to non-recurring engineering and tooling
costs needed to stand up the production line.
The first time you do something, maybe you're not so good at doing it,
marine colonel Henry Vanderbilt said Monday at the navy league's annual sea
air space symposium.
"You get better over time there are process improvements with aircraft after
aircraft. we find more efficient ways to do things, there may be some
material changes that occur during the production run and all of those
things put together to allow the cost to go down as you acquire your units."
But the 87.1 million dollars figure does not include ancillary and
development costs said Vanderbilt program manager for marine corps and navy
heavy-lift helicopters.
"The CH-53 costs include 19.2 billion dollars in procurement costs,
including ancillary equipment such as engine covers, labor costs for
engineers spare parts, and other expenses," Vanderbilt said.
"When you add the 6.9 billion dollars in research and development for the
CH-53Kyou get a total cost of 26.1 billion dollars which comes to
about 131 million dollars for each helicopter," he said.
"However the cost of each helicopter could go down further based on foreign
military sales," Vanderbilt said.
"You add another 25 percent to your production run production unit cost goes
down," Vanderbilt said.
Having foreign militaries such as the germans purchase ch 53ks would also
allow the marine corps to share sustainment costs with allies, he said.
