Lawmakers demand Army justify pursuit of recent attack recon helicopter

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers would curb the U.S. Army secretary’s travel until the service shows an intensive evaluation of alternatives to pursuing a Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft, in response to a draft of the fiscal 2024 policy bill released this week by the House Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces.

Not more than 70% of the Office of the Secretary of the Army’s travel budget might be obligated or spent until Secretary Christine Wormuth submits that evaluation for the FARA program to congressional defense committees, the mark of the bill laid out.

The Army accomplished a “very robust” evaluation of alternatives in 2019 for its Future Long Range Assault Aircraft program, subcommittee Chairman Rob Wittman, R-Va., told Defense News in a June 14 interview. “So our query was why not the identical for FARA?”

The Army selected Textron’s Bell to construct the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft in December 2022.

As for the FARA program, the Army released a request for proposals in the summertime of 2021 limited to 2 preselected teams — Lockheed Martin and Bell — for a competitive fly-off. Each team has essentially finished constructing prototypes and are awaiting the delayed Improved Turbine Engine Program engine as a way to get off the bottom for the fly-off phase of the competition. Flights are delayed by at the least yr. The present plan is to fly by the fourth quarter of FY24.

“Apparently they started off but never accomplished [the analysis of alternatives for FARA] after which got here to a call, and here’s where we’re going to go along with the request for proposals on FARA,” Wittman said. “What we’re saying is that with all of the things occurring today with all the various service branches and looking out at these platforms and looking out at how do we now have capability and capability at the identical time, they need to do a really rigorous take a look at alternatives.”

There are other schools of thought on future attack and reconnaissance capabilities, Wittman said, pointing to the Marine Corps’ vision for semiautonomous and autonomous aircraft to cut back risk and “have a much bigger footprint in that realm.”

Doug Bush, the Army’s acquisition chief, told Wittman during a hearing in April that the service is conducting an evaluation of alternatives for the FARA program, noting the method was slowing this system along with the ITEP engine struggles.

Wittman said throughout the hearing that he’s alarmed the Army is just now conducting an evaluation of alternatives AOA for FARA — having already spent $2 billion on this system — and pressed Bush for what might occur if the review showed a greater alternative to what’s in development now.

Bush explained the evaluation kicked off now since the Army had not selected an acquisition pathway earlier in this system. The Army debated between whether it could enter this system on the engineering and manufacturing development stage, or if it should take a more traditional approach and undergo a technology development phase.

“We decided the more responsible approach can be to go to a conventional Milestone B, which requires the AOA,” Bush said. “I believe I’m confident though that the AOA, the way in which it’s structured, is fair. It’s very thorough, examining many alternatives. I believe that’s good.”

“We’ll know more later this yr,” he added. “I believe we might be in a great place to know exactly where things are going to land when it comes to this system schedule.”

Due to delays throughout the program, Bush said throughout the hearing, FARA’s technology maturation phase won’t begin until the primary quarter of FY26.

The Army is continuous to develop systems for FARA, despite delays, that transcend just the airframe, Maj. Gen. Wally Rugen, who’s in control of the service’s vertical lift modernization, told Defense News in April.

While the Army waits for the engine, it’s developing the weapons systems and a critical modular, open-system architecture for the aircraft, Rugen said. “That is our effort to claw back schedule and claw back scope.”