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The brand new Marine One helicopters, a part of a program that america spent $5 billion on, nonetheless cannot carry President Joe Biden as a result of there’s nonetheless a threat they’ll scorch the White Home garden, based on a brand new report.
The rotors and engine exhaust from the Sikorsky-manufactured VH-92 Patriot will sometimes burn the grass when it lands, a difficulty that was initially recognized in 2018, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
Due to this unrelenting drawback, the brand new VH-92 is just carrying White Home officers or Secret Service personnel as an alternative of the president himself and is restricted to touchdown on paved surfaces, the report mentioned. Older VH-3D Sea King helicopters will proceed to move Biden from the long-lasting, conventional South Garden takeoff spot.
The executive-transport fleet consists of VH-3D and VH-60N helicopters, that are designated with the “Marine One” callsign when Biden is aboard. The U.S. army sought to interchange these getting old plane with the newer VH-92 methods underneath the $5 billion program and has already secured 20 of them from Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky’s father or mother firm.
The VH-92’s lawn-scorching issues have been first found in 2018 through the Trump administration, kick-starting an effort to resolve the problem.
The Authorities Accountability Workplace, a watchdog company, famous in a June 2020 report on the matter that the army had “but to exhibit that it might meet the requirement to land on the White Home South Garden with out inflicting injury.”
“Warmth from the auxiliary energy unit and/or engine exhaust proceed to wreck the garden underneath sure circumstances,” the GAO wrote on the time.
“This system is finding out options,” the GAO mentioned, noting that these included sure “plane design modifications, garden floor remedies, and operational procedural modifications to reduce touchdown zone dangers.”
In early 2021, the Division of Protection’s operational testing and evaluations workplace decided that “the injury was discovered to be primarily attributable to engine exhaust, auxiliary energy unit exhaust, and discharge of plane fluids onto the grass.”
Nonetheless, in its 2023 annual report, which was launched earlier this 12 months, the Pentagon mentioned the VH-92 is “operationally efficient for administrative carry missions” after the helicopter’s “voice communications” have been improved, with out particularly mentioning the garden problem.
A White Home official informed Enterprise Insider that the respective places of work concerned in this system “are working diligently to make sure a easy, protected, and well timed transition” from the present fleet of helicopters to the VH-92.
“That is an event-driven objective, not a time-driven one,” the official mentioned.
A Sikorsky spokesperson informed BI that the protection contractor is working ” in shut collaboration with our Naval Air Methods Command buyer and have an agreed upon touchdown zone answer with testing deliberate to validate and make sure the plane meets that particular operational requirement.”
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