The Air Force will not simply “start over” with the snake-bit combat search and rescue helicopter replacement program, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said yesterday afternoon at AFA’s Air & Space Conference. The program was won by Boeing’s HH-47 last year, but the Government Accountability Office has upheld two successive protests by losing bidders—Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky. Wynne said the service would release “amendment five” to the request for proposals in late October, again holding the competition to just the original bidders. “May the best company win,” he said. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley said he’s trying to hold onto the originally planned in-service date. If the schedule is broken, he’ll have to find money to extend the service lives of the HH-60 Pave Hawks, and he doesn’t have any money for that.
Members of the Air Force Reserve’s 920th Rescue Wing helped save 11 airplane crash survivors off the coast of Florida on May 12. The Reserve Airmen were flying an HC-130J Combat King II and an HH-60W Jolly Green II on a routine training flight when a Coast Guard call diverted…