Losing a $4B Contract

Or "Defiant to the End"

 

Photo Credit: U.S. Army photo by Ms. Sarah Merriweather

On December 5, 2022, the US Army selected Bell’s V-280 Valor over Boeing-Sikorsky’s SB>1 Defiant X as their next troop-transport helicopter under the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA, pronounced “Flah-ra”) program. The FLRAA is intended to replace the UH-60 Blackhawk for the Army, with potential to replace similar aircraft in the US Marines and in the militaries of US allies (e.g. NATO countries). What was most interesting about this selection was that it wasn’t made on the basis of cost or aircraft performance: Team Defiant was disqualified for failing to provide certain details in their proposal, so Bell won by default.

Proposal requirements

My information for this comes from the public Government Accountability Office (GAO) report which explains why Sikorsky’s protest was denied and the award upheld. In addition, I’ve worked on several new aircraft programs which were bid to the US Department of Defense, so I’m also trying to read between the lines. In this section I’ll be abbreviating Boeing-Sikorsky and Team Defiant as “Sikorsky” because the GAO does (or only Sikorsky filed a protest).

The proposal evaluations were broken down into four overall factors:

1. Engineering design and development
2. Product supportability
3. Cost/Price
4. Small business commitment

Excluding where Team Defiant was later disqualified, here’s how the two bidders stacked up:

1. Engineering design and development: Bell Acceptable / Sikorsky Acceptable*
2. Product supportability: Bell Good / Sikorsky Acceptable
3. Cost/Price: Bell $8.087 billion / Sikorsky $4.445 billion
4. Small business commitment: Bell Acceptable / Sikorsky Acceptable

* Actually Unacceptable

So the Bell proposal was equivalent in design and development (better expected performance, worse in testing and evaluation planning), more supportable, and equivalent in supporting small businesses, but at nearly twice the cost.

Where Sikorsky failed as was in the “Architecture” subfactor of the "engineering design and development” factor, which focused on the design to support a “Modular Open Systems Architecture” (MOSA). MOSA which would enable the end-customer to perform their own modifications and upgrades on certain systems without involving the helicopter manufacturer. This has become hugely important in defense contracting: if the Army wants to install e.g. a new radar in their helicopter, the interface with the rest of the airframe (power, data, cooling, etc.) might be so customized that neither the Army nor the radar manufacturer can replace the radar without awarding an upgrade contract to the helicopter manufacturer. Depending how open MOSA ends up being, the Army might be able to go directly to Joe’s Radar Shop and buy their surprisingly cheap and power radar; those various airframe connections would be standardized (hardware and/or software), and everyone (including the taxpayer but excluding the helicopter manufacturer) is happier.

It seems that Sikorsky delivered plans and proposals that did not address the Army’s requirements to prove that they were serious and capable of providing a MOSA for their new helicopter, and they were disqualified for it. And they offered an acceptable aircraft for half the price, so I have to imagine they stood an excellent chance of winning the contract with an acceptable architecture plan (assuming nothing changed in their proposal other than making the architecture acceptable). It makes me wonder what the discussions inside Boeing and Sikorsky were like after the Army briefed them on why Bell was awarded.

The actual best aircraft

I have my sympathies for the Defiant X. Sikorsky has poured money and time into their “compound coaxial rigid-rotor” technology to demonstrate its capability, and it comes with several advantages:

Flies like a helicopter

The Bell V-280 is a tiltrotor like the Bell-Boeing V-22, which means that it has engines and rotors on the wingtips which point straight up to take off like a helicopter and then point forward in-flight like a conventional propeller plane. This means that pilots need to know how to fly both an airplane and a helicopter and be aware of all times which set of reflexes they should be using. By contrast, the Defiant X has (as far as I know) the same characteristics throughout all stages of flight.

Better landing performance

Much has been made of the larger footprint of the V-280 compared to the Defiant X. With large rotors on each wing, the V-280 needs significantly more space to land than its competitor or the UH-60 it’s replacing, which could reduce the number of troops per minute offloaded in a landing zone: either fewer helicopters can land or some need to wait for space to open up. Landing in a war zone is one of the most dangerous situations for a helicopter as it’s slow, low, and can’t maneuver unpredictably; circling and waiting to land is just giving more time for an enemy to line up their shot.

In addition, the V-22 tiltrotor is notorious for bad “brownout” on landing where sand and dirt is kicked up by the downwash of the rotors and blinding pilots right before they land. The V-22 is especially susceptible because of its high disk loading (i.e. each square foot of rotor is supporting a lot of weight), which means that its downwash is particularly fast and focused. I imagine the V-280 runs the same risk (only so much space for a large rotor on each wing) and the Defiant X would suffer less (large rotors).

Cost

The US military (especially in aviation) has seen many programs which have promised huge production runs and actually bought only small fleets (B-2, F-22, arguably F-35). As the war in Ukraine reminds us, industrial warfare requires mass. If Defiant X were truly that much cheaper to procure and support, that would mean a lot more air-mobile troops or a lot more support for them because the budget isn’t being gobbled up by FLRAA.

As a reminder, Team Defiant was disqualified because without open systems, their sustainment costs might have been much higher than the V-280; the fact that the Army couldn’t trust their $4B number was fatal and they might have feared that they’d be paying $8B either way, just not for initial production.

Isn’t a tiltrotor

I’m poisoned by what I’ve seen of the Bell-Boeing V-22. Three decades after its introduction, we are still finding ways that it is uniquely dangerous because it’s a tiltrotor (like hard clutch engagement and flaws in the input quill assembly). The V-280 is superior to the V-22 by having learned so many hard lessons, including having the engines not tilt with the rotors. But asymmetric lift, high disk loading, and lack of autorotation are inherent to any tiltrotor.

In my research for this post, I refreshed my 2023 memory on the two aircraft and must admit a counter-argument on the tiltrotor: compound coaxial rigid-rotors are even less tested! Alex Hollings for The Sandboxx makes an excellent argument here, although I’m disappointed that he didn’t address the hard-clutch engagements on the V-22 fleet which had surfaced in 2022.

Conclusion

Decisions about sustainment and data rights are often key to the business case in a proposal. But they’re also key to the end-customer, so beware the risk of disqualification. As a taxpayer I’m happy that the Department of Defense is taking a hard line on open systems architecture; governments have long recognized that they need to avoid lock-in with one manufacturer (e.g. forced co-production of aircraft and systems in World War II, weight-loss drugs during a shortage), so why not prevent lock-in from the start?

Anyone have any juicy inside stories about Sikorsky in the aftermath of the award? Thoughts about which aircraft is a better FLRAA? Please reach out in the comments below, at blog@saprobst.com or this page is cross-posted at LinkedIn and you can leave a comment there.