Well I am not going to bash Bozo on this one. This is the same program that Bush proposed to award to the British and Obama abandoned 5 years ago.
Yes it is still ridiculously expensive. And that is because the requirements are ridiculous, or at least extreme. And it might be that they should be met.
The helicopter is required to have insane range, have nuclear/EMP survivability, provide secure national emergency communication, and be able to land on The White House lawn.
The helicopters they have meet only the last of these.
A stock S71 has good range and can land at The White House, but will be fried by EMP and does not have the communications channel.
Once you add enough stuff you can’t use a stock airframe, the weights change, the loads change, new structural analyses are required, and airframe redesign thus required, and new NC programs and tooling are then required.It It really does wind up being a whole new helicopter. And so it costs a lot of money.
When an Iranian EMP goes off on the east coast it might be better to have President Gowdy fly rather then walk to Andrews.
I agree with you on this. In addition to all of the requirements you listed I would imagine that small arms/SAM survivability would also feature as mandatory.
One thing that people overlook when a military project of $XX billion is announced is that the figure (at least here in Australia) covers not only R&D and build costs but infrastructure, personnel, maintenance and operating costs over the life of the platform. Spread over (at a guess) 25 years it isn’t too outrageous.