Advanced Turbine Engine Company, a joint venture of Honeywell International Inc and Pratt & Whitney, is reportedly protesting against the U.S Army’s decision for awarding General Electric Co a contract worth $517 million for manufacturing its next-generation Black Hawk and Apache helicopter engines. As per the company, the protest has been filed with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) of the United States.
Craig Madden, President of ATEC stated that the company offered the best value via an amalgamation of highly rated and technically premium engines that was judged as low risk as well as the company did it significantly under the government’s budget. He further mentioned that the company is requesting the government to reevaluate these facts and award the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) contract to ATEC, which is the best engine that the country’s warfighters and taxpayers deserve.
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, it has awarded GE a six-year contract to design and manufacture new T901 engines, covering thousands of helicopters. Amidst the existing claims against the US Army, ATEC rival GE said in a statement that the Army had conducted a detailed and well-organized bidding process which overtly clarified requirements and established an unbiased field for both the players.
GE was extremely confident about the Army’s comprehensive review and assessment of the competing bids and the T901 engine’s triumph.
As per a report, both companies had invested nearly a decade and billions of dollars to build the technology for the ITEP program, whose winner will be entitled to supply new propulsion systems for the Army’s AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, the UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopter, and probably the future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft. GE reportedly presented a single-spool engine named T901, and ATEC proposed T900 dual-spool engine that is said to have more growth potential and better fuel efficiency.