The Air Force is giving helicopter companies more time to revise their offerings for the UH-1N utility helicopter replacement contest, service acquisition chief Darlene Costello said Thursday. Speaking with reporters at AWS17, Costello said after the release of the draft request for propos?als, “industry said they weren’t going to be able to meet our threshold requirements.” There will be no final RFP in the spring; it will be released in the summer, but the planned date of contract award and initial operating capability have not changed, she said. Though she did not say in what areas the helicopters on offer fell short, industry sources said it was chiefly in the amount of load they can carry. “I don’t expect the requirements to change,” Costello said, and the extra time will give companies a chance to see if they can tweak their offerings to meet them. “Everybody said they needed some additional time,” she said.
Update: This entry was updated on March 6, 2017, with the correct name of the service’s acquisition chief.