Lockheed Martin VH-71 Kestrel

The Lockheed Martin VH-71 Kestrel was a cancelled presidential transport helicopter, a variant of the AgustaWestland AW101 that the United States Marine Corps selected to replace the Marine One fleet. Marketed first as the US101, it was developed and built in the United States by a consortium headed by Lockheed Martin Systems Integration at Owego, with AgustaWestland and Bell Helicopter as partners; AgustaWestland built the main rotor blades and fuselage sections at Yeovil in the United Kingdom, where the first test VH-71A flew on 3 July 2007. The Department of Defense chose the US101 in January 2005 for the VXX Presidential Helicopter Replacement Program and it received the VH-71 designation that July, but delays, cost overruns and engineering problems followed, with projected costs passing 13 billion dollars for 28 aircraft. The Navy terminated the contract in June 2009 after nine had been delivered, and the aircraft were later sold to Canada as spares for its AW101-based CH-149 Cormorant fleet, seven being converted for service from 2018.