The VH-71 program to replace the existing fleet of presidential helicopters looks set for more contentious debate inside Washington this year as supporters push forward but acknowledge setbacks that appear to undermine the reasons given for the Navy-Marine Corps award to a Lockheed Martin-led team three years ago.

"There was no decision made in the president's budget on restructuring the program," a senior Pentagon official said. Nevertheless, program officials want to take $1 billion from increment-two production money to fund research, development, testing and evaluation (RDT&E) adequately so that, among other tasks, they can pay for additional testing time.

"Now what we need [to continue] is the investment for building increment one and two helicopters. For fiscal years 2010, 2011 and the out years, we don't have the money. The problem is cash flow. It's not a good situation," the official told Aviation Week.

Military aviators with insight into the program maintain that the Pentagon chose the right company -- Lockheed beat Sikorsky in a surprise win (DAILY, Jan. 31, 2005) -- and the right helicopter. But they contend the program is stalled until the White House and Pentagon senior civilians agree on reasonable requirements for the helicopter, as well as identify an additional $4 billion needed to fully fund the program.

For fiscal 2009, the department of the Navy officially would like to boost RDT&E to $1.05 billion, compared with $225 million for FY '08. In different Pentagon briefings Feb. 4, admirals responsible for respective DOD-wide and Navy-Marine budgeting explained that the RDT&E boost stems from slashing previously planned procurement during the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. The Navy and Marines, which operate the fleet, had expected to buy four helos starting then.

"We don't believe we're ready to move forward to increment two now," said Rear Adm. Stan Bozin, director of the Navy-Marine budget office (DAILY, Feb. 5). "We don't know what we don't know."

Meanwhile, Congress and the Navy and Marines are ready to fully fund the program, the Pentagon official asserted. "There's strong support from the White House and the technology doesn't require inventing anything new. [In addition,] AgustaWestland is really a great company. It's not an impediment to progress. And we picked the best helicopter," the official added.

Still, congressional auditors and even Defense Department testing officials have warned since early 2005 that the Navy-Marine program plan risked problems caused by concurrency, or simultaneous production and technology development, as well as an accelerated schedule (DAILY, April 18, 2005).

But a more systemic problem is securing agreement between the White House and the Pentagon's top civilian acquisition officials. Despite a recent hours-long decision meeting between the White House and Pentagon acquisition officials, there's been no resolution on the program. Insiders blame a combination of politics and technological indecision.

"[The Office of the Secretary of Defense] hasn't made the decision to move forward," the Pentagon official says. "And we can't go to [production] contract award without full funding."

At the same time, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who represents the district of competitor Sikorsky, is using the delay to ask Defense Secretary Robert Gates to reopen VH-71 on the grounds that Lockheed and AgustaWestland can't deliver. She and Connecticut's high-profile senators started lobbying the Defense Department and fellow lawmakers for Sikorsky shortly after the award to Lockheed (DAILY, Feb. 4, 2005).

Meantime, since issues became public last year, industry supporters have claimed that the White House added equipment that would increase weight and require structural changes to the airframe, thus building delays into the program. But in a separate contracting fight over the Air Force's troubled CSAR-X helicopter program, Lockheed officials also have asserted that VH-71 issues were on their way to being resolved (DAILY, March 9, 2007). Nevertheless, the official said there has been talk about restructuring since March 2006.

Pentagon analysts had studied the needs of the various users and came up with 35 options. The resulting examination proved that the operational requirement was sound, but a number of program assumptions proved to be flawed. Among those assumptions were that six major design reviews could be completed in the first 16 months of the program.

"But the contractors didn't staff up to meet those needs," the Pentagon official said. "It didn't happen. So we were underobligating and underspending. Those [flawed] assumptions flowed down to AgustaWestland. So there were 16 months lost arguing with the contractor over requirements and that made us 16 months late to critical design review. Now there's no decision on restructuring."

Another flawed assumption is that there was money and manpower to conduct "concurrent design, manufacturing and qualification testing as well as concurrency in [production of] increments one and two," the Pentagon official said. "We didn't have near the resources we needed to pull that off."