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New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, D, holds up a Save Combat Rescue hat at a Jan. 24 rally at Lockheed Martin’s Owego, N.Y., modification plant. (Handout)
With the fate of the US Air Force’s Combat Rescue Helicopter (CRH) effort still hanging in the 2015 budget balance, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has emerged as one of the program’s most powerful champions.
Sure it helps that the helicopters the Air Force might buy would be partially built at a Lockheed Martin facility in upstate New York, but Schumer has engaged with senior Defense Department officials for months voicing his support for the program.
Lockheed has partnered with Connecticut-based Sikorsky, and were the only ones to submit bids for the 112-aircraft program. If they win, Sikorsky would build the air frame and Lockheed would install the mission systems.
The effort has been far from a lock to receive funding in the 2015 budget process. But Schumer and other supporters on Capitol Hill elevated CRH program’s stature when they declared it a congressional special interest item in the 2014 Defense Appropriations Act.
Schumer touted the CRH funding in the 2014 defense spending bill and other Lockheed helicopter efforts at a Jan. 24 rally at the company’s plant in Owego, N.Y.
“Lockheed Martin will fly the economy of Tioga County and the entire Southern Tier higher and higher now that the CRH contract funding is secure. Even more promising, there are two new contracts funded by the recent appropriations bill that are right in Lockheed’s wheelhouse, the Marine One Presidential helicopter fleet and Naval Hawk Helicopters, which could bring even more work and jobs to Tioga.”
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Sen. Chuck Schumer at a rally at a Lockheed Martin facility in Owego, N.Y. (Schumer press office via FLICKR)
