January 2020
First, the CH-47F program’s defnition of one unit has changed over time. In the early days of the program (as refected in the original June 1998 SAR), the plan was to SLEP 3 300 existing CH-47D helicopters to an updated configuration, which would be called the CH-47F. In PB 2005, the plan was to SLEP 287 CH-47D helicopters to the CH 47F confguration, and 50 MH-47E Special Operations helicopters to a new MH-47G confguration. The defnition of a unit had changed to include both CH-47D/F conversions and MH-47E/G conversions, which produce distinct end items and have diferent expected costs. The Army’s February 2007 budget justifcation forms expanded the set of planned activities to include all of the following: • Newbuilds of CH-47F fromscratch for ActiveDutyArmy units • Newbuilds of CH-47F in a diferent confguration for National Guard units The reported and projected unit costs for these activities were all diferent. More to the point, the defnition of a unit now included not only a remanufactured existing helicopter, but also a newly built helicopter of the same design. While these may be functionally identical from an operational point of view, PMs would reasonablywant to knowhowmany of each were to be built—and at what cost. To further complicate matters, the helicopters produced (both SLEP and new build) employ a mix of mission subsystems, some of which could be repurposed from a remanufactured helicopter or other existing decommissioned helicopter, and some of which had to be built (and purchased) new. The type and number of repurposed subsystems continued to vary from year to year, so that the production inputs (and price) even for new-build Active Component CH-47Fs were diferent from year to year. The result of these changes is that any given unit produced by the CH-47F program might have any one of the MH-47G, CH-47F Army, or CH-47F National Guard confgurations. A CH-47F unit might be remanufactured or built new. Whether remanufactured or new, it might include some unspecifed mix of government-furnished (free) and contractor-furnished (at a price) mission subsystems. For example, as of the 2013 PB submission (February 2012), 43 new-build units had been produced at an average cost of $15.0million, of which $1.1 million per unit was for government-furnished • SLEPs of CH-47D to CH-47F • SLEPs of MH-47E to MH-47G
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Defense ARJ, January 2020, Vol. 27No. 1 : 28-59
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