If you’re in the market for a baker’s dozen of refurbished
Sikorsky S-61T helicopters, the U.S. State Department will happily sell you the ones it has sitting in a hangar in southern Florida. The State Department had originally planned to buy more than 100 of these choppers to move diplomats and other personnel
in high-risk areas, such as
Afghanistan. Delays and other issues left it with a fleet of less than 20, most of which went straight into storage.
The General Services Administration (GSA) is
already auctioning off the first five S-61Ts – with the U.S. civil registration numbers N107WK, N122WU, N375WS, N575AW, and N898WC – each of which has a starting bid price of $500,000. This does not meet an unspecified reserve price for a final sale, though. The State Department plans to sell its remaining fleet of these helicopters, 13 in total, via GSA within six months, according to the Department’s Press Relations Office.
“There is no longer a State Department mission requirement for them,” the State Department told
The War Zone in a statement via Email. “These specific aircraft will not be replaced.”
The S-61Ts were refurbished ex-U.S. Navy and NASA
SH-3 Sea Kings, which were themselves military variants of the S-61 series. The Sea King has been all but retired from U.S. military service for years now. The U.S. Marine Corps is still using heavily modified
VH-3D Sea Kings, more commonly known as Marine Ones, to shuttle around the President of the United States, their family, and their closest advisors, but is planning on replacing them with
new VH-92As over the next four years.