Sikorsky and Workers Avoid Strike

February 17, 2009 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Business Line, Companies, Connecticut, Events, Services, Sikorsky, States, U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, UTC, production program 

Sikorsky and its unionized workers were able to agree on a contract today avoiding another potentially costly strike. The Journal Inquirer reports that the Teamsters Union and Sikorsky agreed to a contract on Sunday. Three years ago a long strike severely impacted the ability of the company to build aircraft at the desired rate of production. Since then Sikorsky has signed a big UH-60 Black Hawk contract as well as begun the CH-53K program and hopes to possibly win the CSAR-X re-competition. With all the work underway the new contract is substantially better in terms of pay then the last one. The strike was about employee contributions to health insurance although the union ended up settling on the company’s proposal.

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VH-71 Suffers Cost Breach and Connecticut is Lobbying

February 16, 2009 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Business Line, Companies, Congress, Connecticut, Contract Awards, Department of Defense, Events, Federal Budget Process, Lockheed Martin, Military Aviation, Proposal, Restructuring, Services, Sikorsky, States, U.S. Navy, UTC, commercial aviation, development program, production program 

The Connecticut Post reports that the VH-71 new Presidential helicopter program suffered a “Nunn-McCurdy” cost breach. There are two levels of this breach and the higher one, a 25% increase, requires the Secretary of Defense to certify the program is still required for the U.S. national defense. The fine Senators and Congressmen from Connecticut have pricked up their ears at this development and want to meet with DoD to discuss canceling the program and giving it to Sikorsky. The contract with Lockheed Martin has seen considerable cost growth due to requirements creep since the contract was awarded. This has required wholesale changes to the EH-101 platform selected. Hence the great increase in cost and schedule for the program. Of course the DoD will have to weigh the savings if another vendor proposes something cheaper with the time required to restart the program. With a new administration it is conceivable that the contract could be canceled and started over, like ARH, but it probably won’t happen.

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U.S Navy Buys Eight More Submarines

December 22, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Business Line, Connecticut, Contract Awards, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman Corp., U.S. Navy, Virginia, production program 

The U.S Navy awarded General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman a contract worth over $14 billion to buy 8 more Virginia class attack submarines. Bloomberg.com has the report. The Virginia class are the latest attack submarines in the U.S Navy fleet. This order will bring the total to 18 either already delivered or under construction. The companies will split the order and build them at their respective yards in Connecticut and Virginia.

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GE wins contract to provide engines for the KC-45

March 31, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Boeing, Connecticut, Contract Awards, EADS, GE, Pratt & Whitney, Protest, U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, logistics 

This article, is I hope, commentary and not a news story. Or perhaps it is one of those commentaries that masquerade as a news story. Yes, P&W lost the chance to build engines, but GE won. If Boeing had won the contract I doubt there would have been an article saying “GE loses contract.” As to how politicians could change this, that I still haven’t figured out, since the whole source selection process is supposed to be removed from such things.

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