GAO Denies Sikorsky FLRAA Protest

The U.S Government Accountability Office (GAO) has denied a protest filed by Sikorsky that challenged the award of the Army’s Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) development contract to Bell Textron. The contract, which is valued at approximately $7.1 billion if all options are exercised, was given to Bell for its V-280 Valor tiltrotor last December. Sikorsky filed its protest later that month citing issues with the evaluation of both its own proposal and Bell’s.

“In denying the protest, GAO concluded that the Army reasonably evaluated Sikorsky’s proposal as technically unacceptable because Sikorsky failed to provide the level of architectural detail required by the RFP [request for proposal],” the accountability office said in a statement. “GAO also denied Sikorsky’s various allegations about the acceptability of Bell’s proposal, including the assertion that the agency’s evaluation violated the terms of the solicitation or applicable procurement law or regulation.”

The FLRAA program was launched in 2019 with the goal of developing a vertical lift aircraft to eventually replace the Army’s aging H‑60 Black Hawk utility helicopter fleet. The program aims to field the first aircraft by fiscal year 2030 with entry-in-to-service planned for the mid-2030s. The two contenders for FLRAA were the Bell V-280 Valor and the Sikorsky-Boeing Defiant X.