Le Bourget, France —The Air Force expects to move out shortly on its Common Vertical Lift Support Platform helicopter replacement effort, David Van Buren, USAF acquisition executive, said here Tuesday at the Paris Air Show. He noted that there are many potential competitors for the program, and told the international audience that they should be heartened by the fact that the Air Force is willing to look at foreign offerings, as it did on the KC-X tanker program and with the C-27J transport. Likewise, a request for proposal for a new rescue helicopter will go out in 2012, and Van Buren expects the contract award for that platform in 2013.
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…