Pentagon earmarks $1bn to buy Trump six new helicopters - Times of London

Pentagon earmarks $1bn to buy Trump six new helicopters

Michael Evans

February 14 2018, 12:01am,

The Times

Armed Forces

Donald Trump

Sea Kings have carried every US president since Dwight D Eisenhower

The Pentagon has set aside almost $1 billion next year for six presidential helicopters. They will replace the Marine One Sea Kings that have carried every American president since Dwight D Eisenhower.

After more than a decade of botched planning to replace the most famous helicopter in Washington, President Trump will be the first White House incumbent to fly in the new $170 million aircraft.

The six Sikorsky VH-92As are probably the world’s most expensive helicopter and will cost a total of about $1.2 billion. Under the 2019 defence budget request, $900 million dollars would be allocated to complete the programme next year. The first helicopter will go into operation in 2020.

The new Marine One will be fitted with all the comforts necessary for the president and his staff. It will be armoured to withstand the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear explosion and have systems to fend off guided missiles. As with the present Marine One, the president will have access to secure communications to hold conference calls with his cabinet and military chiefs.

President Obama once said that he thought his Marine One was “just fine” and cast doubt on the need for a replacement. However, the existing fleet of Sea Kings was built in about 1975. Their predecessors carried President Eisenhower, who was the first White House incumbent to get his own fleet. The US military stopped flying those Sea Kings in the 1990s.

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Sikorsky, an arm of Lockheed Martin, won the contract for the new aircraft in 2014. The replacement programme started in 2003 but the first option was cancelled after a huge overspend of several billion dollars.

The $900 million allocated to the programme in next year’s budget, which has yet to be approved by Congress, appears in a long list of new military hardware. Pentagon spending is set to rise by 10 per cent to $686 billion.

The Trump administration views Russia and China as its main threat and so the 2019 defence budget request has focused on acquiring more warships, submarines, aircraft, tanks and missile defence.

The big ticket items include $10.7 billion for 77 more F-35 joint strike fighters, $2 billion for 24 more F/A-18 jets, $6 billion for three Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, $1.3 billion for 60 Apache attack helicopters and $7.4 billion for two Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines.

Mr Trump has previously promised a boost for the military. Pentagon officials said that the expenditure represented 3.1 per cent of GDP, compared with 6 per cent spent under President Reagan in the 1980s.

One official added, however, that a “spectacular” rise in spending was planned for 2020, the last year of Mr Trump’s first term in office.