Presidential Helicopter Could be Sinkhole for Tax Dollars 

(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today criticized the Department of Defense (DOD) for awarding Sikorksy the $1.6 billion Navy contract to build the next generation Marine One fleet, despite the company’s checkered history of delivering projects on time and on budget.  Sikorsky has supplied presidential helicopters without competition since the Eisenhower presidency.

“Apparently, the DOD did not learn its lesson and has chosen to head down the same potentially expensive and fruitless road it took back in 1985,” CAGW President Tom Schatz said.

Sikorsky is the contractor responsible for the ill-fated Comanche helicopter project, awarded twenty years ago.  The Comanche seemingly had it all: dazzling graphics, wide political support and great promise.  However, the helicopter never materialized; $8 billion later, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld mercifully killed the project last February.

Sikorsky’s bid for the Marine One contract is riddled with red flags signaling the strong possibility of another Comanche-style disaster.  Sikorsky’s proposal for the Marine One fleet is based on its S-92 commercial helicopter.  The first S-92 helicopter promised in July 2001 was not actually available until late 2004, three years behind schedule.  Furthermore, Sikorsky admitted that the modifications for the proposed presidential version are still in the “development phase.” 

The long-postponed debate over the two contractors was clouded by Washington spin.  Sikorsky draped its contract bid with American flags, insinuating that its competitor presented a less “American” choice.  While that bidder includes some foreign owned companies, the vast majority of manufacturing would still have been done by American workers with American parts.

 “Taxpayers deserve to have costs stay on the ground—and the President deserves a helicopter that can actually fly, not just go through a computer simulation,” Schatz concluded.  “With a projected deficit of $427 billion for fiscal 2005 and the continuing cost of war in Iraq, this is no time for the DOD to give one more corporate giant with questionable credentials a blank check from American taxpayers.”

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.