You Can Buy The State Department's Totally Upgraded S-61T Helicopters That It Barely Used - Air Wing CH-46E in Afghanistan.jpg ...

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The U.S. State Department spent untold millions on refurbishing the second-hand
helicopters and now they could be yours on the cheap.

If you’re in the market for a baker’s dozen of refurbished Sikorsky S-61T
helicopters, the U.S. State Department will happily sell you the ones it has
sitting in a hangar in southern Florida. The State Department had originally
planned to buy more than 100 of these choppers to move diplomats and other
personnel in high-risk areas, such as Afghanistan. Delays and other issues left
it with a fleet of less than 20, most of which went straight into storage.

The General Services Administration (GSA) is already auctioning off the first
five S-61Ts – with the U.S. civil registration numbers N107WK, N122WU, N375WS,
N575AW, and N898WC – each of which has a starting bid price of $500,000. This
does not meet an unspecified reserve price for a final sale, though. The State
Department plans to sell its remaining fleet of these helicopters, 13 in total,
via GSA within six months, according to the Department’s Press Relations Office.

“There is no longer a State Department mission requirement for them,” the State
Department told The War Zone in a statement via Email. “These specific aircraft
will not be replaced.”

The S-61Ts were refurbished ex-U.S. Navy and NASA SH-3 Sea Kings, which were
themselves military variants of the S-61 series. The Sea King has been all but
retired from U.S. military service for years now. The U.S. Marine Corps is still
using heavily modified VH-3D Sea Kings, more commonly known as Marine Ones, to
shuttle around the President of the United States, their family, and their
closest advisors, but is planning on replacing them with new VH-92As over the
next four years.

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At the time, the deal, which was potentially worth up to $1.675 billion and also
included purchases of a number of refurbished short- and long-fuselage
commercial S-61N helicopters with similar upgrades, was seen a major win for the
Connecticut-headquartered helicopter maker. The company hoped that the sales to
the State Department would help promote the S-61T upgrade package to additional
customers, as well.

The exact unit price that the State Department ultimately paid for each of the
helicopters it acquired is unclear. Carson had previously upgraded a number of
late-model Navy SH-3s with its composite blades and new avionics at a cost of
around $3.5 million per chopper. Whatever the case, the cost was undoubtedly
significantly higher than the $500,000 starting bid in the current GSA auctions.

The State Department planned for these choppers to primarily support the
operations of its Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs’
Office of Aviation, also known as INL/A or the State Department Air Wing, in
Afghanistan. To this day, the Air Wing runs a shuttle service called Embassy Air
with five-minute flights between Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport and
the U.S. Embassy.

The Air Wing, which has more than 200 aircraft and helicopters of various types
in total, also performs a number of other missions in Afghanistan, as well as
other sites around the world, and runs a similar Embassy Air service in Iraq and
Jordan.

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If you are interested in picking up any of the former State Department
helicopters, you can place bids on any of the five on auction now through April
18, 2019.


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