The Sikorsky/Lockheed Martin VH-92 is an American helicopter under development to replace the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through c ...

Marine One Marine One is the call sign of any United States Marine Corps aircraft carrying the president of the United States. It usually denotes a helicopter operated by Marine Helicopter Squadron One (HMX-1) "Nighthawks", consisting of either the large ...

U.S. presidential transport fleet; it is a militarized variant of the

Sikorsky S-92 The Sikorsky S-92 is an American twin-engine medium-lift helicopter built by Sikorsky Aircraft for the civil and military helicopter markets. The S-92 was developed from the Sikorsky S-70 helicopter and has similar parts such as flight control ...

Design and development

Sikorsky entered the VH-92 variant of the S-92 into the VXX competition for U.S. presidential helicopter

(replacing the Sikorsky

VH-3D The Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King (company designation S-61) is an American twin-engined anti-submarine warfare (ASW) helicopter designed and built by Sikorsky Aircraft. A landmark design, it was one of the first ASW rotorcraft to use turboshaft engin ...

Sea King and

VH-60N The Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk is a four-blade, twin-engine, medium-lift utility military helicopter manufactured by Sikorsky Aircraft. Sikorsky submitted the S-70 design for the United States Army's Utility Tactical Transport Aircraft System ( ...

White Hawk), but lost to the

Lockheed Martin VH-71 Kestrel The Lockheed Martin VH-71 Kestrel was a variant of the AgustaWestland AW101 (formerly the EH101) that was being manufactured to replace the United States Marine Corps' Marine One U.S. Presidential transport fleet. Originally marketed for vario ...

. However, the competition was restarted in 2010 due to ballooning VH-71 development costs, allowing Sikorsky to resubmit the VH-92 in April 2010. By mid-2013, all other aircraft manufacturers had dropped out of the contest, leaving only Sikorsky. On 7 May 2014, it was announced that the VH-92 had won the VXX competition to replace the aging VH-3 Sea Kings that transport the President of the United States. In May 2014, Sikorsky was awarded a US$1.24 billion contract to build a variant of the S-92 for transport of the U.S. president. Sikorsky will outfit this variant with an executive interior and military mission support systems, including triple electrical power and redundant flight controls. Six of the variant, designated VH-92A, were ordered by the U.S. Navy for delivery in 2017. Production of a further 17 aircraft is planned to begin in 2020. The total FY2015 program cost is $4.718 billion for 23 helicopters, at an average cost of $205M per aircraft. In July 2016, the design passed its

Critical Design Review In the United States military integrated acquisition lifecycle the Technical section has multiple acquisition "Technical Reviews". Technical reviews and audits assist the acquisition and the number and types are tailored to the acquisition. Over ...

, which cleared it for production.US Presidential Helo Moves to Production Phase
Christopher C. Cavas, DefenseNews.com, 25 July 2016

Operational history

On 28 July 2017, the first VH-92A performed its maiden flight at Sikorsky Aircraft's facilities in

Stratford, Connecticut Stratford is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It is situated on Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Housatonic River. Stratford is in the Bridgeport–Stamford–Norwalk Metropolitan Statistical Area. It was settled ...

. On 22 September 2018, a VH-92 was flown to the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

for take-off and landing tests at spots used for Marine One. In late November 2021, Pentagon officials noted the aircraft was “failing to meet the reliability, availability or maintainability threshold requirements.” The statement noted that during test flights, the aircraft damaged landing zones with its exhaust and fuel leaks. The helicopter had not yet entered service carrying VIPs.

Variants

* VH-92A: 21 planned * CH-92A: 2 planned for training

Operators

; *

(23 on order)

Specifications (S-92)

Sikorsky CH-148 Cyclone 1-view line drawing

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Leoni, Ray D. (2007). ''Black Hawk: The Story of a World Class Helicopter''. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. .

External links

S-92 page on Sikorsky.com
{{PresidentialCallsigns 2010s United States helicopters VH-092 VH-092 Twin-turbine helicopters 2010s United States military transport aircraft United States military helicopters Aircraft first flown in 2017