Israel’s Ministry of Defense now has a green light to spend more than $2 billion on a fleet of Sikorsky CH-53K heavy-lift helicopters.
Multiple Israeli media outlets report that a committee of government officials that oversee defense spending approved the $2.4 billion deal in a meeting on Nov. 28. The meeting lasted less than an hour, according to Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post. On the recommendation of the Ministry of Defense, the deal is good for 10 to 15 helicopters to replace the Israeli Air Force’s aging CH-53 “Yasur” helicopters.
The CH-53K beat out Boeing’s CH-47F Chinook in February, when Defense Minister Benny Gantz selected the single-main-rotor 53K over the tandem rotor Chinook based on recommendations from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi and Defense Ministry Director General Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel.
Ganz sits on the committee that approved the deal Nov. 28, along with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman, Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.
The U.S. State Department in July approved the sale of up to 18 Ch-53Ks to Israel for $3.4 billion. That approval also included 60 General Electric T408-GE-400 engines — each King Stallion is powered by three, as opposed to the two in legacy CH-53D helicopters, on which the Yasur is based — navigation and communications equipment, weapons and associated gear and contractor services.
“The proposed sale will improve the Israeli Air Force’s capability to transport armored vehicles, personnel, and equipment to support distributed operations,” the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a July 30 statement announcing the sale’s approval. “Israel will use the enhanced capability as a deterrent to regional threats and to strengthen its homeland defense. Israel will have no difficulty absorbing this equipment into its armed forces.”
Sikorsky recently completed the first CH-53K at its Stratford, Connecticut, plant where production of the heavy-lift aircraft is set to ramp up to meet the U.S. Marine Corps fleet requirement of 200 aircraft.
The next King Stallion from Stratford is scheduled for delivery in early 2022. Since October 2020, Sikorsky has delivered four operational CH-53K King Stallion heavy-lift helicopters to the U.S. Marine Corps in Jacksonville, North Carolina (the fourth was delivered Sept. 29). Those aircraft and the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) aircraft were assembled at Sikorsky’s flight test facility in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Six CH-53K aircraft are currently being built in at Sikorsky’s Connecticut plant, with another 36 in various stages of production, including nine for which long-lead time parts are being procured.
Israel is the first nation to buy the 53K outside the U.S. Sikorsky, which is owned by Lockheed Martin, also made the IDF’s legacy CH-53 “Yas’ur,” Israeli for petrel. That helicopter, which entered service in 1969, also beat out the Chinook based on requirements Israel established after the Six Day War for a heavy-lift helicopter.
