Keeping to the existing airworthiness certification of the civil Sikorsky S-92 helicopter is one of the guiding principles in developing the new VH-92A that will transport the U.S. President, according to the Navy’s program manager. The aircraft will require supplemental Navy or Federal Aviation Administration certifications for systems or equipment specific to presidential mission.

Marine Col. Robert Pridgen, Presidential helicopters program manager with the Naval Air Systems Command (Navair), said maintaining the S-92’s airworthiness certification from the FAA, which proves that the helicopter conforms to its original type design, is one of the lessons learned from the Navy’s earlier selection of the VH-71 Kestrel version of the AgustaWestland AW101 in 2005. The Pentagon cancelled the program in 2009 due to spiraling costs and requirements.

“We learned a whole bunch [from] that event. I think we’ve got this one right in terms of some of the stumbles and the missteps we took before,” said Pridgen, who spoke April 14 at the Navy League Sea-Air-Space conference in National Harbor, Md. “We were not going to go through an airworthiness certification again on an airframe,” he added. “You can imagine that restricts a lot of the good ideas, if you will, but it also brings a load of discipline into the integration exercise that goes on inside the program. For whatever vehicle that came in, we were going to use the air vehicle airworthiness, safety of flight—whatever certification came with it, and the objective would be: do not violate that airworthiness certificate.”

The Navy awarded Sikorsky Aircraft a $1.24 billion contract to begin engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) of the new Presidential helicopter on May 7, 2014. The contract calls for Sikorsky to deliver six aircraft—two engineering and development models (EDM) the Navy will use for flight testing and four system demonstration test articles for operational test and evaluation, by 2020. The program expects to conduct a preliminary design review in August, with a critical design review following in about one year. Ultimately, Marine Helicopter Squadron One will fly 21 VH-92s after two low-rate initial production and one full-rate production lots.

A Navair component group at St. Inigoes, Md., which is attached to the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, serves as the “configuration manager” in charge of the VH-92A design, Pridgen said. The group will pass the design to Sikorsky and its industry partner, Lockheed Martin, to integrate with the S-92 airframe while maintaining the helicopter’s airworthiness and performance characteristics. “There are some requirements on the aircraft that commercial aircraft don’t necessarily apply to their design. That is part of the integration piece with Sikorsky,” he said. For example, radiation hardening of electronic systems “is a spec on the aircraft, and that has been accounted for in terms of weight and time and schedule.” Some equipment, such as ARC-210 military radios, the FAA does not certify, and will require supplemental approval on the helicopter.

The military and FAA certification processes are being conducted in parallel, Pridgen said. “We have a very disciplined way of going about integrating this, that we are not seeing any of those things you normally do that will require another airworthiness certificate or certification for the airframe,” he said. “What you get at the end of the day [is] an integrated air vehicle with a mission comms system [and] an executive suite inside. It does look presidential.”

Sikorsky transferred the first EDM helicopter from its Coatesville, Pa. facility to Lockheed Martin in Owego, N.Y., 30 days early to begin antenna testing, Pridgen said. The program expects to receive the second EDM model in September.