AUSA 2025: Boeing, Leonardo team for army's Flight School Next programme

A US Navy and Marine Corps TH-73 training helicopter in flight. (US Navy)

Boeing and Leonardo announced a partnership to compete for the US Army's Flight School Next rotary-wing training programme on 13 October during the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) conference in Washington, DC.

The partnership builds on Boeing's experience working with Leonardo on the MH-139 helicopter programme for the US Air Force (USAF), as well as its longstanding work with the US Army on the AH-64 Apache, CH-47 Chinook, and MH-6 Little Bird helicopter programmes, Turbo Sjogren, vice-president and general manager for Boeing Government Services, told journalists during a briefing at the conference.

Leonardo would provide its commercial AW119T helicopter for the programme, he noted, adding that “we think that there's [a] pretty good complementary opportunity here”.

Boeing does not have an aircraft in the class sought, but “I think that the strength we bring pairs up really nicely with the strength they bring”, Sjogren said.

Boeing is the integrator for the project and provides the sustainment solution, John Chicoli, senior director, US Army, Marine Corps & Special Ops/Missions for Boeing Global Services, told journalists. “We're going to look across the best of industry, bring that team together and integrate that sustainment solution,” he said.

The company is similarly “working across industry to find the partners that best fit this opportunity” for the training component, including simulators, Chicoli said.

Proven helicopter

“This is a big opportunity for the army to change how undergraduate training is done” by moving to the contractor-owned, contractor-operated (COCO) model, Andrew Gappy, vice-president of US government programmes for Leonardo, told journalists.