WASHINGTON — Textron’s Bell can move forward with building the Future Long-Range Assault
Aircraft the Army’s largest helicopter procurement in 40 years, after the Government Accountability Office rejected a competitor’s protest.
Lockheed Martin-owned Sikorsky filed a protest late last year. Boeing, Sikorsky’s teammate, also filed a protest.
“In denying the protest, GAO concluded that the Army reasonably evaluated Sikorsky’s proposal as technically unacceptable because Sikorsky failed to provide the level of architectural detail required by the [request for proposal],” an April 6 statement from the office reads. “GAO also denied Sikorsky’s various allegations about the acceptability of Bell’s proposal, including the assertion that the agency’s evaluation violated the terms of the solicitation or applicable procurement law or regulation.”
The FLRAA competition pitted head-to-head Bell’s V-280 Valor, a tiltrotor aircraft with Sikorsky and Boeing’s Defiant X, which features coaxial rotor blades. Both aircraft were designed to fit into the same footprint as a Black Hawk.
video (C) Steve Douglass
