If approved by senior Air Force and Pentagon officials, the funding proposal would finance preliminary research and development work on the command's Common Vertical Lift Support Platform (CVLSP) program, the official directing the effort, Lt. Col John Cannafax, told Inside the Air Force on Nov. 14.

The program is geared toward developing a rotor-propelled aircraft to replace the command's fleet of Bell Helicopter-manufactured UH-1N Hueys.

The need to replace the Huey was prompted by "capability gaps" in the legacy helicopter's mission performance, according to Cannafax. The platform's limitations in carrying capacity, speed, range and endurance all factored into Space Command's decision to pursue the CVLSP.

AFSPC officials included a funding line for the initiative in the fiscal year 2008 spending plan it sent to Air Force Headquarters in recent months. The command's spending blueprint became part of the service's program objective memorandum, which is being reviewed by Pentagon officials.

"Typically, you would start off a program like this with a very small amount of money for a year or two," Cannafax said. The funds included in the command's spending plan, if included in the Pentagon's FY-08 budget request and adopted by lawmakers, would finance "all of the of documentation and research" associated with pre-systems design and development work on the CVLSP, he added.

Space Command officials had "put some resources and spent a little money" on preliminary assessments of a Huey replacement in 1995, 1997 and 1998. But until they put together their FY-08 plan, the organization had left the program almost entirely unfunded.

The service's overall program objective memorandum was submitted to the Office of the Secretary of Defense on Aug. 15. That plan will set the Air Force's spending parameters from fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2013.

Declining to comment on how much command officials requested for the CVLSP program, Cannafax said the figure would cover anticipated cost estimates for such work over a two-year time frame. He did not specify for which years of the six included in the POM the command is seeking CVLSP dollars.

"My job is to continue to work the POM process," he said. "I will be involved with that, the program will be involved with that, but you never know how those years are going to go."

Meanwhile, the Air Force Requirements Operations Concepts Council (AFROCC) approved an analysis of alternatives in June that laid the groundwork for nailing down what kinds of missions the next-generation helicopter could carry out. In developing the AOA, Space Command officials reviewed 23 "mission profiles" and a number of mission "sub-profiles" to determine which tasks the CVSLP might perform once it joins the fleet, according to Cannafax, who was also the command's study lead on the AOA.

AFSPC's primary tasking for the aircraft will be flying security missions above intercontinental ballistic missile sites within the continental United States, as well as airlift support in the Washington, DC, area.

In addition to those tasking orders, the AOA also looked at the aircraft's potential role in homeland defense missions, domestic search and rescue operations, and training missions now carried out by Hueys stationed at the service's five other major commands, Cannafax said.

To that end, the AOA examined whether the service should consider using the new CVLSP helicopter at Yakota Air Base in Japan to conduct airlift missions in that region, as well as training missions at Fairchild Air Force Base,WA. Each location currently utilizes UH-1Ns to fill those mission requirements, Cannafax said.

Other applications explored in the AOA included a handful of missions currently under way at Air Force Material Command and Air Force Special Operations Command.

While the AOA took into account the range of missions each MAJCOM assigns its Hueys, the eventual airframe selected to comprise the CVLSP fleet must first fulfill the mission mandates set by Space Command.

"What we are resourced for, and what the primary mission that we are looking for in the CVLSP, is ICBM security and operational support airlift in the national capitol region -- those are the two drivers," he added.

With the council signing off on the AOA's findings in June, the study has moved to Air Force Headquarters, where service brass must endorse it. Then, it would be turned over to the Pentagon's influential Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) for final approval.

Though CVLSP is years away from being declared a full-blown acquisition program, the Air Force's recent selection of an industry proposal for its high-profile combat search and rescue helicopter replacement effort, known as CSAR-X, could play some sort of role in the Space Command helicopter replacement program, says an industry official involved in the CSAR-X program.

For his part, Cannafax said it would be "premature" to say whether the CSAR-X contract award might impact the command's helicopter replacement efforts -- but he did say that the three finalist platforms in the rescue airframe competition appear to meet most CVLSP requirements.

Air Force officials on Nov. 10 awarded Boeing a $712 million contract to begin developing its HH-47 Chinook helicopter as the service's new CSAR aircraft (ITAF, Nov, 10 p1). The Chinook beat out two other designs. A Lockheed Martin-AgustaWestland team offered its US101 medium-lift helicopter during the competition. Sikorsky, which manufactures the outgoing HH-60 Pave Hawk, proposed its HH-92 helicopter.

The $712 million covered by the contract will be used for research, development, testing and evaluation work on the HH-47, service officials said during a Nov. 10 briefing at the Pentagon to announce the rescue helicopter contract.

The service's anticipated buy of 141 HH-47s, at an estimated cost of $15 billion, will replace the existing Sikorsky-made Pave Hawk fleet, which is dedicated solely for combat search and rescue tasks.

Pursuing a single airframe for the two programs has been discussed within the Air Force before.

Service officials, beginning as early as 2003, had explored the possibility of using a single airframe to cover CSAR and Space Command lift and missile security missions, Cannafax said. To that end, the two were a single program, known as the "Personnel Recovery Vehicle" (PRV), until 2005.

At that time, the program was split into the CSAR-X and CVLSP efforts "to provide additional requirements analysis" on each individual mission portfolio, Cannafax added.

But even after the split, tasks envisioned by CVLSP studies, which were conducted between 1995 and 1998, were virtually identical to those outlined for the combat search and rescue mission, one industry source tells ITAF.

"They took a lot of requirements for CSAR-X and kind of just cut-and-pasted into the [early] requirements for CVLSP," the source said.

To that end, Space Command officials have "looked at all the platforms" offered for CSAR-X as options for the Huey replacement, according to Cannafax.

"There are a lot of platforms out there that can meet our requirements," he said. "Those larger platforms, such as the [US]-101, [HH]-92, and [HH]-47, come close or may meet all of our requirements."

Even before the Nov. 10 contract award to Boeing, Sikorsky officials brought their HH-92 to F.E. Warren Air Force Base, WY, and had aircrews assigned to ICBM security details fly the helicopter "to see how they fit into it, how they could get out of it [and] all those types of things," the industry source noted.

Shortly before Boeing's HH-47 was selected for CSAR-X, another industry official told ITAF that the defense and aerospace giant would be "taking a shot" at competing for CVLSP. That official, however, could not confirm if the company would pitch its HH-47 CSAR-specific helicopter.

The service also could save millions in operation, maintenance and training costs if Space Command's eventual Huey replacement shared the same airframe as CSAR-X, the industry source involved in the rescue effort said.

"You do not have multiple logistics trains, multiple training trains [and] all the things that go along with having two or three different aircraft," he said. "You get one helicopter pilot that can fly all those missions, it just makes so much sense."

While Cannafax said a shared platform "is certainly a possibility," he added that it would be "premature to speculate" on any airframe selection, considering that the program is still unfunded.

"We have a pretty good idea of what our requirements are [and] there are a lot of platforms out there that can meet" those requirements, Cannafax said. "But our leadership will make that decision . . . on the best solution to go forward with."