A U.S. Coast Guard MH-60 Seahawk helicopter. (U.S. Coast Guard)
(Tribune News Service) — The U.S. Coast Guard intends to award Sikorsky a contract to replace older helicopters with new ones based on the Sikorsky Jayhawk and Seahawk design, in what could represent a major new contract for the Stratford, Conn., manufacturer if approved by the federal government.
Sikorsky builds Seahawk helicopters at its headquarters factory in Stratford as a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, which has added mass production of CH-53K King Stallion helicopters for the U.S. Marine Corps to ongoing work building U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters.
Years after refurbishing 90 H-65 Dolphin helicopters for extended service beyond their original shelf life, the Coast Guard is now looking at looming retirements of those helicopters. Built by Eurocopter, a predecessor company of today’s Airbus Helicopters, the Dolphin has been in service since 1984.
The Coast Guard gave a preview of its Sikorsky plans in September after ordering engines from GE Aerospace to be installed on new Jayhawks it plans to purchase. The Coast Guard said the Jayhawk’s “ability to locate, identify and track surface targets day or night makes it a valuable search and rescue and law enforcement asset” as worded in a press release.
The Coast Guard added its first Sikorsky H-60 Jayhawk in 1990, with plans at the time to phase out older Sikorsky HH-3F Pelican helicopters that began entering service in 1967. Among other attributes, the Pelican had triple the cabin space of the Jayhawk, and could land and take off from the water.
Now it appears the Jayhawk will displace Dolphin helicopters in the Coast Guard fleet, but with the total number of future helicopters to be produced still an unknown and any total contract value.
The contract would be managed by the Naval Air Systems Command under the U.S. Department of Defense, according to a notice on the Sam.gov federal contracting portal. The Coast Guard is a branch of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The Coast Guard operates 48 Jayhawks today, including at Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod which covers the Northeast from Bourne, Massachusetts. Six Jayhawk helicopters in the Coast Guard fleet were converted from Navy Seahawks. The federal notice does not specify whether any similar conversion of existing Seahawk helicopters could be part of the contract.
In the notice, NAVAIR called Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky the only manufacturer “with the proprietary data, expertise, technical data, equipment, and personnel” to support the H-60 program. Rival bidders would be able to file a “capability statement” listing qualifications to produce rescue helicopters if they chose to do so.
The Jayhawk has a range of 800 miles, an “endurance” of seven hours aloft and a rescue hoist that can lift up to 600 pounds. In footage of a Coast Guard night rescue last year, a Jayhawk crew and swimmer are shown helping a sailor to safety, including toting a cat above the waves in a pet carrier.
In 2021, the Coast Guard awarded Sikorsky a contract valued at up to $850 million to produce new helicopter “hulls” to buy another 20,000 hours of flying time for helicopters in its current Jayhawk fleet, with that contract reaching its conclusion last April. That work was performed at a Coast Guard aviation center in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.
At the time, the Coast Guard indicated it wanted to extend the shelf life of Jayhawk helicopters so that it could dovetail any future helicopter purchases with the Department of Defense’s Future Vertical Lift program, with a Black Hawk replacement the centerpiece.
Sikorsky lost out on the initial Future Vertical Lift contract to Bell Textron, but the Black Hawk is expected to remain in service for at least another half-century. Sikorsky now hopes to interest the Army as well in a drone version of the Black Hawk for cargo, surveillance and strike missions.
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