The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition announced Oct. 22 the posting of the Combat Rescue Helicopter Request for Proposal to the Federal Business Opportunities website, signaling the official launch of this high priority Air Force acquisition program.
The RFP defines an integrated, capability-based, best-value approach. It also includes specific factors for assessing the capabilities and risks inherent in each offer and identifies four goal requirements: hover performance, combat radius, payload and cabin space.
The primary mission of the CRH air vehicle is to recover isolated personnel from hostile or denied territory; it will also execute humanitarian missions, civil search and rescue, disaster relief, casualty and medical evacuation, and non-combatant evacuation operations.
The program will replace the Air Force’s aging HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter fleet with new air vehicles, training systems, and product support elements as required for the personnel-recovery mission.
The CRH requirement is for 112 aircraft. The Air Force plans include leveraging in-production air vehicles and training systems while integrating existing technologies to deliver this new combat capability.
Prior to this announcement, officials from Air Combat Command, Department of the Air Force and Office of the Secretary of Defense participated in a rigorous acquisition review process for CRH. The review ensured the source-selection process is executable as written, reduces risk, and will deliver the war fighter a product that meets the requirement at an affordable price.
More information can be found at https://www.fbo.gov/spg/USAF/AFMC/ASC/FA8629-12-R-2400/listing.html
