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Pentagon awards some $1bn to Boeing for military choppers

The photo shows an F-15SG fighter jet (L) and an AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopter (R) flying during an airshow in Singapore on February 16, 2016. (AFP)

The US Defense Department has placed an order with Boeing Co. for the purchase of 117 Apache tactical helicopters.

The Pentagon said in a Thursday announcement that the "Boeing Company, Mesa, Arizona, was awarded a $922.6 million… contract for 117 AH-64E remanufactured Apache helicopters."

"Work will be performed in Mesa, Arizona, with an estimated completion date of May 31, 2018."
The Defense Department previously placed other orders for the purchase of fighter jets including F-35 stealth fighters with the Lockheed Martin aerospace company.

A Pentagon official said at the end of January that the US military planned to purchase a fleet of 500 F-35 fighter jets before finding out if they perform well in combat situations.

In total, the Pentagon will order a total of 2,443 F-35s for the US military in addition to hundreds more that are ordered by countries such as the UK, Italy, Australia and Japan.

With a projected cost of $391 billion, the F-35 program is the most expensive US weapons program ever and the figure is expected to exceed $1 trillion during the aircraft’s 55-year life cycle.

Although the US military spending has declined from nearly $700 billion in 2010 to $560 billion last year, the Defense Department still has hefty expenditures on such programs.

In late 2015, the US Army presented a troop reduction plan that would leave it with force strength of 450,000 domestic and foreign forces by mid-2018. The reduction shows a cut of more than 20 percent from the 120,000 soldiers in 2012.

The US army has verily been ramping up its military operations in tension-ridden areas particularly in the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East.


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