Aircraft
Program under review, LM halts Marine One development
Pentagon sources confirmed to AIN that Lockheed Martin has been ordered to stop work on the development of a second block of AW-101-varian

Pentagon sources confirmed to AIN that Lockheed Martin has been ordered to stop work on the development of a second block of AW-101-variant helicopters scheduled to join the U.S. presidential fleet in 2015, while the Department of Defense reassesses the program and perhaps seeks alternatives that could include the Sikorsky S-92. When the President is aboard, these helicopters are designated “Marine One.”

Spokesmen for Sikorsky declined to comment on the Pentagon’s action to AIN, but a Lockheed Martin spokeswoman confirmed that the Navy had issued a 90-day “temporary stop work order” on the program in November as a result of anticipated program restructuring by the Navy. “We knew this was coming,” a Lockheed Martin spokeswoman told AIN. A Navy spokesman called talk of a replacement airframe “highly speculative.”

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